


Blood Tainted Clouds

by ruler_of_the_lemons



Series: Fly Into the Dragon Realm [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 12:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30055497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruler_of_the_lemons/pseuds/ruler_of_the_lemons
Summary: I'm doing this on my phone and copying stuff from the doc cause my computer's broken-Anyways, um, just read. There's murder, romance, mystery, and more. Also, the characters are dragons
Series: Fly Into the Dragon Realm [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211075
Kudos: 1





	1. The Different Flights

**Author's Note:**

> My girlfriend doesn't need to know about this-  
> I'll fix the tags when I can get to a computer

RiverFlight

Description : River Dragons usually have green, blue, or purple scales and uncommonly some have more brown scales, but nothing too dark. They have a river-like marking that is a transition to their underbellies. They have webbed talons and spines along with having their tail split off at the end. They are made in Somniunda’s, goddess of rivers, dreams and children, picture.

Naming : Named after gemstones, water aspects, fish, and crustactions. 

Territory: They live in the Great Rift Canyons, along cave routes and riverbanks.

Current Rulers:  King Rapid, Queen Cascade

DesertFlight

Description:  Sandy colors, often yellow, rarely gold, and amber with decorative hoods and snakelike snouts. Long, gold tongues that are forked. They have venomous fangs that are deadly and a rattle at the end of their tails. They have snake-like patterns all over their body. 

Naming:  Desert plants and animals, desert events and desert lands, such and dunes. Eight imperil enchanted giant stone spears that can be used to protect the capital. Commonly weapons used are crossbows and shields. 

Territory: Desert dragons live in the southern part of the land, bordering Oceanflight territory and Swampflight Territory. As well as grassland territory and a small border with volcano dragons 

Current Ruler:  King Saguaro 

TempestFlight

Description: Usually dark colors, dark browns, blues, and purples, and sometimes greyscale. They have big wings, and they have bright markings on them that are usually bright green, yellow, blue, purple, or rarely grey tones. They act as a superbattery, and have the ability to channel small bits of lightning into a breath weapon. They have long, strong legs for climbing rocky terrains. 

Territory:  Border Volcanoflight and Riverflight in the Clawreach mountains and Frozentalon tundra .

Naming: Usually have two parts of names that come from nature, a prefix and a suffix.

Current Ruler: Queen Stormcatcher  
  
  


VolcanoFlights 

Description  Magma colored, often browns, blacks, and reds in warmer climates, often brown or blue in colder ones. Some dragons turn paler colors around colder climates.They have a large, sturdy build and huge wings. Almost purple fire breath, tough scales, larger lungs, do not require much food, can communicate by knocking rock together, often hungry and ambitious like their god, Concussio. They have a magical volcano were they forge unbreakable weapons that carry the heat of the volcano's lava as well as armor, they also can make the volcano erupt and kill every none volcano flight

Territory:  They border tempest flight, and the grassland, most of the other flights on Mount Hraun.

Naming:  Anything related to volcanoes, rocks, and sometimes birds.

Current ruler: Queen Obsidian 

GrasslandFlight 

Description : Usually yellow, sometimes chartreuse and amber scales, they have long legs and strong wings. They have the ability to spit acid at enemies, like a spitting cobra, and they have smooth scales that have sharp curves under them, and can be sent up like porcupine quills. They also have short, sharp claws and long, slithering tails. They tend to hunt from the ground instead of the sky, mainly preying on gazelle, buffalo, wildebeests and occasionally lions and cheetahs.

Territory:  They live in the hilly grasslands bordering the RiverFlight and the JungleFlight. 

Naming: Grassland dragons are named after earthy materials and grass species, and sometimes named after things associated with wind.

Current ruler: King Sawgrass

OceanFlight

Description: Ocean dragons are in a variety of dark blues, purple, and sometimes black. They have extremely bright phroescenscent scales and whale-like tails. They have huge wings and sharp, long anchor hooked claws patroding from their wrists and end in sharp anchor like hooks. They also have a head fin and enormous, strong wings for sea currents. Ocean dragons are built for high pressures, and can’t last long on land, a few weeks at most. They rarely surface the continent.

Territory: They live in the Abyss Fall, a large crater in the middle of the Sparkingscales Sea that can be seen from the sky as a large, black hole. Ocean Flights are the only flight that can survive the water pressure. They made their castle at the very bottom, away from predators and prey, meaning they have to swim up to hunt.

Naming:  Ocean dragons are usually named after dark colored jewels, ocean creatures/plants/events, or dark variants of blues and purples. Sometimes they have suffixes.

Current Ruler:  Queen Lapis

JungleFlight 

Description :  Mostly green and chartreuse, and sometimes brown scales. They have branching spines that end in small leaf appendages that are usually bright green or rich brown. They have the ability to control a variety of plants and use them to their advantage for camouflage, defense or even combat. They have leaf shaped wings from any sort of tree, some look like oak leaves while others have simple elder leaf shaped wings. Their diet consists of plants/fruits and occasionally insects, and meat from small animals. 

Territory:  They border the Grassland Flight and the Swampflight in the great GladeWing, which is composed of rainforests and regular forests, often merging together over their borderlines.

Naming:  Jungle dragons are named after things in forests, such as flora and fauna, scrubs, and various poisonous/carnivorous plants.

Current ruler: Queen Manchineel

Swampflight

Description: Large, thick, brown, warm orange, or murky green scales with powerful bodies and the ability to breath underwater. Swamp dragons have strong jaws and have the ability to breath fire, along with strong, thick, crocodile-like tails.

Territory:  Borders the Desertflight and the Jungleflight in the Bayou Swamp.

Naming:  Named after marsh flora, fauna and areas.

Current Ruler:  King Reed.

ZephyrFlight

Description:  Wiped out over a thousand years ago, but as they lived they had pale, feathery like scales that resembled birds, and huge feathered wings bigger than themselves. They had sharp, keen eyes that were usually orange and yellow, and rarely green. They have feather-like spines and predatory-like tail feathers on the end of their tail.

Territory: They used to have a Kingdom on Dragonflame Island, the castle and surrounding city now reduced to ruins.

Naming: They were named after any type of birds and a suffix relating to birds, most commonly appendages.

Current Ruler: During the Great War, their last known queen died of imperial magic, who was Cranetalons.


	2. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Blood and gore  
> We all hate Owlfeather  
> I love Waterfowl

Owlfeather was a normal dragon of the supposedly extinct Zephyrflight. 

He walked through the soft, thick cloud streets as the bright blue sky loomed over him. The sunshine poured through his grey feathered wings as his long legs walked through the street. He passed the shiny, feathery scales of the tribe as they wandered the white, fluffy roads. Unlike the rest of his tribe, he was mocked and teased for his dul, grey scales, and his odd concrete color before it transferred into a light, more shiny grey, especially by his malicious, wretched father. Oh, right, he had called him home for something.

He growled at the thought while moving along the white-brick looking clouds that looked like they grew from the watery fluffballs themselves. 

Unfortunately, they had to live in this boring blue absent sky. He personally hated it. No diversity. Nothing but birds and rainwater to drink. But he couldn’t help it. Not until the Zephyrflight was driven out, precisely one thousand years ago.

They were losing power over the continent. _THEY_ were supposed to rule. They _should_ have, anyways. The ruler at the time, Queen Cranetalons, was an imperial. A dragon with more power than any average dragonet would hatch with. They could do anything, grant any wish that they so desire, but with a terrible price. Every spell grants them closer and closer to the most unnatural death imaginable. Once an imperial dragon used too much of their wonderful gift, they would die, and anyone who so much as smelled the corpse would be merged with it. They would then be resurrected as a reanimated corpse that cannot be killed by any normal means, and will certainly use its powers if you tried to kill it.

And, unfortunately, this was Cranetalons fate. 

She merged with one hundred Zephyr dragons that day. And the undead monstrosity had one thing on its decaying mind- kill every dragon that is not your own.

The hundred-headed monstrosity wreaked havoc across the continent of Enocoasis and the Zephyrflight army did anything they could to help their dead queen.

The Great War raged for months and months. It was horribly, bloody, and long winded. Blood stained the beautiful land, until at long last, the Oceanflights heard about the raging war from their Ocean sea home in the Abyssal Fall of the Sparkingscale Sea and rose from the water to join the fight. The Oceanflights took only a week to track down the Zephyrflights army and finally made it into their camp.

The story was muddled from there, but a great Ocean warrior as well as an imperial, Seafoam, slaughtered the queen with his magic.

The army immediately launched an attack against the dragon, but all the tribes swooped from the sky and ambushed them, killing off hundreds and thousands of Zephyrflight dragons, supposedly being wiped from their dragon planet.

_ Heh,  _ Owlfeather thought.  _ We are coming for them, after what I’m going to tell our king _ . 

Every kingdom ran their royalty lineage like this: If you are 10 years old, the age of maturity for dragons, you can challenge the throne no matter if you're a male or female.

But nevermind that. He reached his home at the edge of their cloudy village, a gift made by the sliver of Cranetalons power that was left. Their home, but not for much longer if Owlfeather’s plan succeeded.

He touched his long, darkish-grey claws at the soft door handle, then opened the door with a quiet  _ creak. _

Owlfeather nearly flung the door open into their set of stairs that led up to the second level. A fluffy looking couch, a glass coffee table with a pot of small white flower buds, and a dining table to the far end of the room with leftover prey was the only decoration in this one small room.

The feathered dragon shut the door and heard his father storm down the spiraling stairs.

He saw the familiar sheen of his near black scales and his usual withering scowl.

“Hello there,” he snarled, his fierce yellow eyes staring right into his soul.

“Hello,” he hissed back, and his fathers response was only a low growl.

The Zephyr dragon’s father was Crowclaws, a member of the royal guard. His silver underbelly glowed from the only two open air windows in their cramped home, like he was a mini black-silver sun in the middle of the day.

“I heard you made an appointment with the king, Owlfeather,” he said, scowling even more and scrunching up his nose.

“I did,” He replied boldly, ruffling his wing feathers. The Ocean grey dragon narrowed his eyes at his son.

“For what, exactly?”

“Nothing much.”

“He doesn’t have time to deal with the likes of you, of all things.”

“He seems to have time with the rest of our kingdom, though. So why not me,  _ of all things? _ ”

“Hush, you lizard. What is it exactly that you want?”

“Nothing, I swear. I have business with King Falconflight tomorrow at noon and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

The black Zephyr dragon let out a long, low hiss, flicking his silver tongue at him.

“Fine, do whatever,” Crowclaws finally said, flicking his tail and putting his helmet back on. He grabbed his grey spear and touched the door handle with his other free hand. “Stay here. Or don’t come back until dusk, if you wish. Or don’t come back at all. I honestly do not care.” He flung open the door to hit Owlfeather square in the face, just missing his eye, storming out back into the street.

“Once I have that meeting, maybe I'll enchant a-  _ something _ \- to kill him,” he muttered to himself, rubbed his wound, and marched upstairs.

The wiry dragon spent the entire rest of the day writing down his notes and thoughts to present to the King on his sparsely decorated desk, with a little steel cup and some lime green ink and nothing more. It was surprisingly backbreaking work, until he had some good thoughts down. Armor that protects every scale of a dragon, but allows them to see and still fly as if it was nothing. Spears and swords and throwing daggers enchanted to pierce anything. An emerald that could heal any wound. A mirror to predict any event that will happen in the next thousand years. His ideas were endless. He was the smartest dragon in their school when he was younger, and he was much brighter than his fellow students. He always got all the right answers on quizzes and outsmarted the bigger, snarlier dragons. Maybe that was one thing he could do, to. Make himself an invincible brute.

He fiddled with his quill every now and then until he finally saw the sun set below the clouds. The secret imperial shoved his slice of paper under his hard bed and pulled one of his blanket corners over the hiding spot. His father could never find out about his power. Not tonight, at least. The king would announce him to the small kingdom tomorrow anyways. 

He headed down the short unlit hall to the top of the stairs to find a reassuring sight- his mother, Waterfowl. 

She had the shiniest scales of all the dragons he memorized in the kingdom. Her beautiful light grey scales with dark grey backscales and a near black beak. Her feathered wings were like a snowy owl’s, every feather on her wings looked like one from the bird. She had black oval spots near her back, surrounded by her beautiful, slight darker light grey scales. She was much kinder to him then Crowclaws, but she never interfered with his terrible parenting skills. But things would have been worse without her here, to be honest.  _ Maybe that will change once my father finds out I’m an imperial.  _ She owned a small doctors office, it was sort of respectable, but not really. She made good currency from it, though.

“Hello,” he said, greeting her. 

It looked like she hesitated for the briefest moment before she stepped closer to him as he came down the stairs. “Hello,” she replied with her silky voice, brushing her wings against his. She threw down an enormous hawk on their coffee table, tearing off its right wing and tossed it to him. 

_ The other gift of the kingdom,  _ he thought, running threw information sorted neatly in his brain.  _ The hunting ridge. _ It summoned birds and transformed clouds into water, everyone was to hunt there two times a day. It kept his fellow dragons surviving here in this bright cloudy wasteland.

_ Won’t be much longer, though,  _ he thought darkly, catching the hawks wing, plucking the feathers and taking a bite.

He had finished his wing and threw its bones and feathers into an alleyway when his father bolted in and slammed the door, locking it quickly.

“Crow, what is happeni-” Waterfowl started.

“Street fight,” Crowclaws sighed. He pointed to the outside calamity where the moonlight shown on the blood spilled so far and clearly dragons roaring.

“There really has been a lot of those,” Owlfeather boldly but vigilantly joined the conversation. Now it was really starting to smell like blood and dragon fire, definitely not the usual, fresh air smell he was used too. His father looked at him as if he found a chickadee pecking at his rugs, but he continued to his surprise. 

“Most of them are protests about living here,” Crowclaws grumbled. “I mean, I get it, it’s getting tiring, but where else are we supposed to go? They'll wipe us out if we go back down to the surface.” 

“The surface,” Owlfeather echoed quietly, flexing his talons on the smooth cloud floor.

“Maybe you should talk to the king about it tomorrow. It’s true, we need a new home. The protesters are right,” Waterfowl said nervously, tenting her claws together and flexing them like she was the lowliest scum on the dragon planet. She took the other hawks wing shyly.

“I might,” Crowclaws replied, ruffling his feathers, laying his helmet and spear on the coffee table, taking the rest of the hawk and heading upstairs. It sounded like outside was haunted with furious dragon roars and ghostly embers now, and he shivered.

_ What do I have to fear? I’m a god, and I’ll be treated like one tomorrow.  _ He thought deviously.

He and his mother sat in silence on the couch until she was done eating, then headed to the stairs. “Get some sleep, son,” she said, heading upstairs into their room. He got off the couch, nearly stumbled forward, then headed up to his abandoned looking room. He went through the open space at the far left of the short hallway and collapsed on his bed, closing his heavy eyelids.

He thought it was a good idea to wake up now. He thought he should, really. Maybe not. Just a few more minutes mayb-

He woke up to his father slapping him in the arm. 

“Up,” he snarled, baring his grim white teeth. Owlfeather nodded, quickly getting up and rubbed some water on his face he found in his drinking cup. “I will see you at the palace once you're done with your little chit-chat.” then left the room, followed by the entry door slamming.

He sighed, diving to the floor. He flung his blanket to the other side of the room, the he-dragon checking his papers hiding spot. Good. The notes written in lime green ink on the cloudy paper were still there. His talons swiped under his bed and he shoved it into his tail satchel, then bolted down the stairs then out the door.

It was a beautiful dawn sky, as if someone poured scarlet and gold into the sky and shaded them beautifully. There were still some stars, like speckled little doves in the distance. This was the day. His heart slammed into his chest like a falcon had its head bitten off. He grinned, spread out his wings and flew west as a small breeze hit his face as he headed to the Hunting ridge.

Only a couple dragons were here so far in the spire that twisted above and poured off rainwater from the edges. He dove down into the enormous clearing and waited.

He noticed a twitch of movement the others didn’t. A twitch of feathered wings. And there-!

The Zephyr dragon swooped down and grabbed the feather, led by an unearthly shrill. He grabbed the tail feathers of a small falcon, then he used his free hand to snap the little bird's neck.

He soared back up, the hazy clouds touching his wingtips as he soared up back to the safe highground and began eating, dropping its feathers into the Ocean below, and soon the bones. One of them, an orange-yellow dragon, was eying him with her jealous orange eyes.

It was dawn. His time was coming. His tribe will rise in a matter of hours.

He spread out his wings as far as they could go, then flew off to the center of the town- the spires that reached up towards the sky.

The Cloud Palace- where King Falconflight ruled the tribe, ran councils, and planned city patrols. But that doesn’t matter. The Zephyrflight will be ruling the surface soon, and his flight will finally be able to see the surface once again. The older dragons told foreboding tales of the land below them- ragged mountains that were supposed to look like the hunting ridge, but much prettier, ravaging oceans, whatever those were, and beautiful greenery.

He reached the entrance courtyard- made from storm-powered green and blue glass plants that gave Owlfeather the feel of an electrocuted garden. He had reached the entrance door where two guards skidded him to a stop.

“Halt!” One of them ordered, flicking her dark russet feathers towards him and slamming her spear into the ground. Her golden gaze pinned him right where he was, as if the Zephyr dragon was glued to the ground. “What are you here for?”

He's seen this dragon quite a few times before. Her name was Goldeneagle, a part of the royal guard just like Crowclaws. Owlfeather heard the name from his father’s mumbling to her when they were patrolling the streets near his house one time. The drab grey dragon dipped his head respectfully. “Hello. My name is Owlfeather, and I have a meeting with His Majesty,” he said, trying to sound as formal as possible.

Goldeneagle eyed him skeptically, then whipped her head right to her partner. “Hawkeyes, will you verify this order?” she asked. The chocolate brown dragon nodded and flew up to the highest balcony.

The two young dragons waited in a long, awkward silence, lime green eyes staring into yellow. What was taking this Hawkeyes so long? It should have only been a couple minutes.  _ He  _ can’t  _ prolong my plan, he will  _ not, Owlfeather thought darkly, ice trickling in his veins.

The dark brown dragon finally returned and landed gracefully down at the right side of the enormous door, tucking his spear into his side. “King Falconflight is very excited to see you,” he said. “He wants to start the meeting now. Please head inside.” 

“Thank you,” Owlfeather replied a little too ungratefully. Goldeneagle took a glass key and unlocked the door, swinging it open. It was bigger than three dragons head to tail, and he rushed inside.

“The throne room is on the top floor,” Goldeneagle called to him. He swept up through soft white stairs for what seemed like a few minutes, then paused at the door to the throne room, about to open it. It was neatly labeled with the words ‘THRONE ROOM.’ He stopped at the last second, startled as he heard two voices talking to one another.

“What are you going to do with him?” asked an unfamiliar voice. Probably a guard.

“Use as much magic as possible from him,” replied a deep, commanding voice. This was Falconflight, Owlfeather heard him as he made speeches to the tribe about hunting or some other nonsense. He heard talons pacing on the floor.

“That eleven year old dragon is nothing but disposable,” Falconflight growled at the back of his throat. “Most useless dragon I’ve ever seen.”

_ They’re talking about me,  _ he realized with cold hatred. He was NOT useless! He was his tribe’s future! So who would care if he had ugly scales once they conquered the world?! The other tribes were nothing but hurdles standing in his way! He flicked his tail violently from side to side, letting out a quiet snarl.

“Your majesty,” said the first voice nervously. “THEN what are you going to do with him?”

“Probably kill him off,” the King replied. “He’s just as expendable as the lower dragons. I’ll tell him  _ my _ ideas and what  _ I  _ want to do. I’m his king after all.”

“And what are those plans, Falconflight?” Owlfeather said, planning his entrance at perfect comical timing. He slowly creaked open the door. The room was full of sunshine, and on the far end of the room were long, thin windows, along with a dais and a cloud throne. The ceiling twisted up in a cone shape, ending up into a point.

“I-I- I uh-” the king sputtered, struggling for words.

“At a loss for words, hm?” Owlfeather snarked. “I would  _ love _ to hear your plans.” The grey dragon scrunched up his nose and smiled deviously. He took his piece of paper out and shredded it to pieces. “Tell me, please.”

“Heh, I-I was -j-joking, right, Mallardwing?” he said, elbowing his ginger-brown and chocolate guard. Mallardwing started laughing, his dark brown arms shaking and his green eyes fierce.

“Uh, yeah! Hah hah!” the guard smiled awkwardly.

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” Owlfeather sneered coldly. “Unfortunately, this cannot call for, I’m afraid.” He snapped his fingers and the guard crumpled to the floor, dead. Ice-cold hatred was burning in his veins. But he finally welcomed it, after all these years. Falconflight stared at the dead body, horrified. He saw true fear in his eyes, which was exactly what Owlfeather wanted.

“Do you wish to be next?” Owlfeather asked, ripping a puff of cloud from the floor.

_ I enchant this little cloud I’m holding in my hand right now to turn into a black flaming weapon that can pierce anything, and when I scrape someone with it, they will be under my control until I die. I also enchant it to be able to float around at only MY command. _

The cloud slowly started shifting into a pitch black shape and into a sword. After several seconds the weapon was formed and he tucked it into his tail satchel.

“N-n-n-no, please,” the king was shaking his head vigorously, staring at him with horror.

“Oh, you don’t get to choose, I’m afraid,” He untucked the sword with his mind, and Falconflight roared in terror, sending his weapon straight for his heart.

Within milliseconds, the king flopped over, dead, staining the clouds around him with dark blood, like deep red glittering against white snow.

Just then, twenty guards burst into the room, including his father. They looked horrified, then their expressions quickly assorted to outraged, lunging the spears towards his heart. Owlfeather snapped again, and all at once the nineteen guards necks were twisted with a hollow snap, their corpses falling over to the ground.

Except Crowclaws.

The two stared at each other for a long, antagonizing moment. 

“How could you?” he asked with pure hatred.

“They are all pawns to me,” he replied.

“No, why did you kill all of them?!”

“Why not?”

Owlfeather laughed a joyful laugh. “You should be honored,” he said, smiling. “You get to have the worst death.”

“What do you-” he started, then was cut off by his own shriek, long, Ocean burns appearing across his body. Blood oozed from his eyes, then everywhere, like an overpressured submarine. His teeth were ripped out, one by one, magically, then his tongue, and his fathers blood gushed out of him, led with dying shrieks. Owlfeather snapped his fingers once more, then his father started shaking, then exploded, sending guts and blood everywhere.

Owlfeather snickered, brushing his hands together repeatedly, admiring his handiwork. He snapped his fingers again, and a general appeared in the room. This was one of his friends, Eagletalons. And his only friend. He was too terrified to even notice the sadist, then he scraped him with his sword.

The brute dragon yelped with pain, then stopped, frozen in place. Eagleclaws looked down, then back up.

His eyes were pitch black, like the coldest, cruelest night with no moons or stars. He sat up taller, his posture better. Every scale and tooth and piece of his stolen mind ready to do Owlfeather’s biding. 

“Master,” he said. “What shall I do for you?”

“Follow me,” The serial killer said, stepping over the bodies and out a window, flapping his wings. He formed a black diamond crown, with Ocean grey-pinkish diamonds. He put it on his head and turned to his first servant- and certainly not the last. 

“We’re going to the surface.


	3. The Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet two of our main characters!

Amethyst remembered the way the hotsprings spread their warmth through her bones. The way that she could spread her wings and float there, without a care in the world. She never appreciated how she was one of the only dragonets who got a hot spring. Amethyst closed her eyes and remembered the last day she had ever seen the hotspring. The memory came to her like a dream. 

Amethyst’s wings had been spread out and she was just floating calmly next to her pet turtle. Sandy was not a real bog turtle, but he had been carved from a magical piece of wood, one of the very few Imperial gifts to the tribe. The block of wood came from a large piece of wood that healed itself every Tenth month on the Tenth day at the Tenth minute of the Tenth hour. The wood was enchanted so that anything carved from it would come to life. The wood could not be harmed by anything except a royal dragon from any tribe. Which she felt grateful for, she might accidentally trample her precious turtle and he would be fine. Not for the last time, she was thankful not to be a royal dragon.

Anyway, Amethyst and Sandy were floating in the hotspring, unusual considering that Amethyst preferred swimming in the underground river, when Amethyst heard voices. Sandy flicked his orange neck from side to side frantically, then relaxed to the heat. She surfaced her head from the relaxing water to hear what they were saying. She looked over at her pet turtle, who moved onto quietly wadding next to her in the shallow ends.

“It's the  _ law _ ! Absolutely NO turtles until age NINE, if you get a turtle AT ALL,” One of the voices protested. The voice was raspy, and Amethyst shivered despite the heat.  _ His voice sounds like sandpaper. _ She grumbled in her head. This was Commander Trout, one of the most brutal Commanders of the Riverflight tribe. She had seen him a couple times throughout the underground tunnels, and maybe father had mentioned him. 

“We can't do that to her! She’s just a dragonet for Somniunda’s sake!” Amethyst heard her mother’s voice say. “It’s a turtle, by the stars above!”

_Are they talking about me?_ Amethyst wandered nervously, making a mini whirlpool in the spring. It wasn’t hot, just pleasantly warm and she sent it over to Sandy, who gave her a surprised blink. The Riverflight goddess, Somniunda, was depicted with a pet turtle by her side, and turtles were seen as holy companions, and once you were an adult, you would have a rare chance of getting a turtle friend. Amethyst was the only exception, King Rapid let her have a turtle early, and only at six years old. Why is he saying it's the law? King Rapid wouldn’t make a LAW like that. Amethyst then decided Trout was insane. Why would the king make a law like that? Wait, they were still talking.

“I will take the turtle at midnight, when she is asleep.” said a new voice, soft and musical, like a silvery oak wood flute, calmly playing it’s wondrous sound to a still, damp night. This was Princess Lionfish, the youngest royal, and the most vicious. Amethyst particularly disliked this dragon, for her malicious behavior and her mockery. She was always talking about how pretty she is in the hot springs, and she honestly wanted to make her claw her own ears out so she couldn’t hear this particular dragon.

“She is usually still awake at midnight,” Amethyst’s mother’s voice announced.

“Then what are we going to do about it? She’ll certainly notice someone walk into her room and take the turtle,” Trout’s raspy voice grumbled.

“Then I’ll just kill the turtle, Tanzanite and Trout,” Lionfish said smoothly with thorns at the back of her voice. There was a tapping noise, as if a dragon was moving closer to another.

“Sounds good to me,” the Commander approved. “I mean, just a turtle, and only YOU can hurt it, Lionfish.”

“NO! She does  _ not  _ need to see her only friend, Sandy, die! Besides, it's also against the law to kill a turtle!” Mother yelled. “What would Somnunida th-”

“I don’t give two gills about what our goddess thinks,” Trout interrupted coldly. “Besides, King Rapid can’t get rid of his best commander and his daughter, who is in line for the throne.”

“Pshaw,” Tanzanite hissed. “He can make both of your lives a lot worse.”

“Silence,” Lionfish growled. “It’s not your say anyways.”

“Then why would you invite me from my patrol and into this conversation?” Her mother’s voice countered.

“ _ We _ thought you were going to be more useful,” Trout snapped. “You go kill it, to end this all.”

_ They’re going to kill Sandy _ , she thought with pure horror, looking at her turtle. She petted her turtle's small, deep brown-black shell, trying to comfort herself.

“I won’t let you!” Tanzanite roared.

“Oh hush, your spunkiness is starting to bore me. I’ll snap the thing’s neck ,” Lionfish snapped, her silkily condescending voice all teeth and claws all of the sudden.

“Lionfish, p-please…” Mother said. “What would Somn-”

“I do not care what Somnuinda thinks, you foolish dragon, for the second time,” Lionfish hissed. “It’s settled. I have more  _ important things  _ to do anyway. I’ll kill it once I’m done with the daily council.”

She heard the talonsteps get fainter and fainter, further and further away, and looked at her small turtle friend.

“I won't let them get you,” Amethyst whispered fiercely to Sandy, gently grabbing her precious turtle and getting out of the hotspring. The only thing that he didn’t like about the hotsprings was it smelled not very faintly of sulfur. She started to dry off with a bleak white towel when she saw dull, muted indigo-blue scales enter the large room. 

“Hello, dear,” her mother, Tanzanite, said. Her large, pale-ish cornflower purple scales gleamed in the light that came from outside of the cave. “Going somewhere, I see?”

“Just going to read a book with Sandy,” Amethyst replied, not meeting her purple-blue eyes. That was clearly a lie. She needed to escape. Now. Now is only what she had. 

“OK, dear, if you head out into the canyons just come back at dusk,” She replied thoughtfully, resting her claws that were colored just like her eyes on her daughter’s shoulder. Amethyst faintly nodded, giving her one last final boundless hug. She truly loved her mother, but Amethyst wasn’t going to let her own tribe kill a holy symbol. Her animal companion. If there was a way to see her again...

There’s no time for that, she reminded herself. She grabbed the turtle and bursted into the tunnel, running for her room as fast as possible. She looked over her left down the tunnel to see her mother’s sick expression as if she was about to see everyone she loved get killed in front of her. 

_ I need just a few things, then I escape. _ Amethyst told herself.

The purple six year old dragonet looked behind her to see her mother’s scales gone. A pulse of panic pulsed through her, her heart pounding deafeningly, running faster. 

_ Come on Amethyst, quick!  _ She yelled at herself, running even faster, trying to be as quiet as possible.  _ She could be getting the others! She could have changed her mind! _

When she finally reached her room, after avoiding wicked stalactites and bottleneck gaps, she was out of breath, and Sandy looked worried.  _ Not an expression I ever thought I would see on Sandy’s face _ , Amethyst thought, grabbing her bookbag. Amethyst grabbed her favorite story, “ _ River’s Claws _ ”, a long mystery book, from her bookshelf. She grazed her talons on the brown leather book, trimming one of her left claws down its sturdy spine. Amethyst loved reading, practiced a lot, and was the best reader in the class. No one else could read a nine year old level book. Her father, Canyon, always told her it was because she had nothing else to do, and no friends.  _ Father’s lost his mind, I have Sandy _ . Amethyst thought smugly, flicking her tail from side to side, trying to regain breath. And another one, a Tempest dragon.  _ She’s my secret though _ . Amethyst thought.  _ I’ll just have to find her.  _ Before Amethyst left, she saw a map spread out on her desk. She looked at it, and packed it into her bookbag.

Amethyst walked to the kitchen, knowing they had last seen her on one of the hallways leading between her room and the pool. Mom will distract them, too. Amethyst thought. Maybe she wasn’t going to tell the others after all. When she reached the kitchen, her first thought was,  _ when was the last time I ate?  _ Amethyst quickly ate a crawfish, and packed a pine wooden flask wood burned with little turtles and water currents trailing behind them. She filled the flask with water that trickled out from one of the walls, and Amethyst also grabbed a few crawfish, because they taste good and are very crunchy. They were one of her favorite foods, she would usually spend her days in the shallow ends fishing for them. Also what Father would think of as loneliness. Doesn’t HE need to fish too? 

She spread her talons across the stone counter one last time, then saw the exit right ahead of her. She nearly tripped over a straw basket with bundles of thyme in it before she quietly opened the door.

Running out of caves, apparently, is  _ really hard _ . Like  _ really really REALLY  _ hard. Caves are long if you don't know, and running is tiring. Amethyst was really tired after all that running so tired she almost fell face first into the river. Although she knew she had to keep going for Sandy. Amethyst paused to think a moment.  _ I won't make it far on foot. My bookbag IS waterproof… _ Amethyst slid into the river, to swim with the current. The river felt cool and slick today, like little salamander toes walking every one of her scales that touched the water. 

She looked up at the huge wavering canyons that were lit up with orange light that looked like melted Volcano dragon scales.

Orange light.

It was dusk. It was time to go. Better get a head start, she reminded herself, fully submerging into the cool river water. Amethyst ducked her head under the water and began swimming with the current. 

At midnight, Amethyst pulled her exhausted scales onto the riverbank. She couldn’t swim anymore. Her scales were beaten with exhaustion, her lungs feeling like they were torn.  _ I have to keep going!  _ Amethyst stumbled a few steps, and fell. Now Sandy looked extremely worried, apparently unaware of what was happening. I need sleep… Amethyst dragged herself into a small cave, and immediately fell asleep.  _ Tomorrow I will keep going. Tomorrow I will get closer to her. Tomorrow I will get closer to the dragon who saved my life.  _ She wrapped her arm around her turtle and fell into the darkness that wrapped around her, around her now gone past and into her uncertain future. 

Amethyst opened her eyes. She was dreaming about her runaway again. She actually slept alright last night, it was always more difficult to sleep in Tempest dragon territory, for some odd reason. Amethyst’s new “bed” was polar bear fur on the ground and soft velvet pillows. Tons. Of. THEM. After wandering for a few months across hills and mountains, Amethyst had found the Tempestflights. A few days after that, she had found Wisteria Mountain, one of her only dragon friends, for Amethyst had made some friends on the way there. Nearly a year later, she still lived with Wisteria Mountain. She was a royal, which was sort of nice. Very fancy rugs! 

When they first met, after she got Sandy, she was very concerned about him. Would she eat him as a midnight snack? Wisteria Mountain then told her that she only ate snapping turtles, but certainly not her friend's pet.

She let the grey room focus around her after rubbing her eyes and blinking several times. There was a huge dark grey flannel bed with a white velvet blanket tossed on a grey cushion bench at the end of the bed, and tucked under the bench was a dark grey trunk. Hanging over the bed was three galvanized metal pots of green flowers strapped to an old piece of silver birch wood. Mirrors were under the wallflower board, and right next to the left wall was a grey wooden desk with a barred metal tray with a little white flowering plant, a black diamond dragon pencil holder with a high quality bark wood pencil, and a pyramid stack of decorative black leather books under an  _ amazing  _ smelling candle. The desk was scattered with notes and papers- always working, apparently. The two balconies of her room were flushed with morning light, and she could see the beautiful bright blue sky with little wisps of clouds here and there.

She saw the familiar dark-ish grey scales getting up out of her bed and doing her familiar series of stretches before putting her jewelry on. Wisteria Mountain looked over at Amethyst and smiled at her, tucking in her suit and making sure her black bowtie thing was tucked in. It was a black bandana looking thing that had another triangular stripe of white with a black bow tie and a pouch with a fake green flower.

“Morning,” Wisteria Mountain said, dipping her face in one of the four cascades that lead out to her balcony. 

“Morning!” Amethyst exclaimed cheerfully, flicking her tail from side to side, then getting up and stretching her legs. She was glad Sandy was safe

Sandy crawled as close as he could to them, and said good morning by waving one of his flippers. Sandy was the usual distraction for Northstar, Wisteria Mountain’s one year old sister, and yet he was always so  _ cheerful _ .  _ How does he  _ manage  _ it?  _ Amethyst wondered. That dragonet is a  _ talonful _ . Northstar seemed to think  _ everything _ was edible, from Amethyst’s talons, to fish from the river. Once, she even tried to eat her mother’s crown. Amethyst grinned at the memory. For  _ once  _ Wisteria Mountain’s mother focused on something other than how much she hated Amethyst for a day.

Suddenly, all three of them heard three knocks on the door. Two fast, and one slow. Sandy burrowed into his shell, twitching nervously. Amethyst flinched. She looked toward the door that slowly creaked open through it and saw a dragon with scales similar to frostbite. This was Willow Mountain’s guard, Frost Caller. His scales were unusually pale, but Amethyst had seen a few pale dragons around that palace before. He had frosty grey scales and a dark grey dorsal region and black horns. His sharp, cold, calculating winter-blue eyes stared at them alertly, like a frosted over puddle.

“Your majesty?” He said, fully poking his head into the room.

“Hello, Frost Caller,” she said politely like a moon silvered alto flute in the wind. 

“What is it?”

“Her Majesty requests you in the dining room,” He said in his usual here-is-some-information tone. “Immediately.” 

“We’ll be right there,” Wisteria Mountain said, shooing her talons at him. Frost Caller looked at Amethyst significantly, frowned at her, then closed the door.

Amethyst made a face at the spot where Frost Caller had been.  _ He is an ugly dragonist cabbage-snout.  _

“Sorry about him! He’s pretty cranky today,” her Tempest dragoness friend said, grouping up her pieces of paper on her desk together. Sandy crawled out of his shell and looked over to them with the cutest little expression on his adorable face. 

“It’s fine,” Amethyst replied. “He’s probably the cruelest dragon out here.” She added, grinning. “Can I come?”

“Yes, of course,” Wisteria Mountain said, laughing. “I would enchant my mother’s face to shut the sky above up if she tried to stop you.” 

Amethyst couldn't see her own face, but she thought perhaps she looked like Northstar when she saw a feast. Her friend was an imperial, a dragon with incredible magic. The laws in all the tribes where they can only use their godly powers only three times in order to prevent the price of their magic, and at her seven year old ceremony, which happened recently for her, well, a couple years ago, she only had to use one. She created the Gifting Tree as she called it, a manchineel tree covered with wicked thorns that only those who have good intentions can pick a bright white-pastel colored glowing fruit from the tree. A dragon with a glowing orb can wish one imperial magic wish, and then it would be destroyed into dust, and a new one would instantly grow in its place, only taking seconds to grow. And those with bad intentions for the orbs die, sending its thorns and toxic sap after it. It has its own sort of magic, passing through any supernatural defense, but only the queen and herself knew that. This invincible tree grows in the inner royal outside garden courtyard, and often used to create even more gifts.

“Alright, ready to go?” Her friend asked, opening the intricate grey wooden door.

She nodded, putting Sandy in his terrarium as he happily was put on his sun basking rock as he started to swim. Amethyst dropped a kelp vine, watermelon and some mealworms and hurried after her friend in the black marble halls. 

Amethyst looked around the familiar palace walls that were large and expensive and made of polished marble. Little water features were in the middle of the halls, in between white windows and wooden shrubbery boxes with little grey plaid stripes in the center. After a while they reached a large door the same as Wisteria Mountain’s bedroom with four guards posted at it. All four of them dipped their heads respectfully and eyed Amethyst, then opened the door.

It was a long, enormous room, with a black table cloth and loads of food dripped onto it. There were hundreds of neat stacks of silverware and plates and bowls, along with glass wine glasses that gleamed in the fake diamond chandelier light. 

And on the end of the room in the two royal chairs studded with diamonds was her royal friend's mother, Queen Stormcatcher, and her father, Yarrowblade. 

Stormcatcher shuffled her dark grey scales that matched Willow Mountains, and eyed Amethyst intimidatingly with her bright cyan eyes and shifted her black wings with suspicion. 

“Hello, daughter,” her mother said in her medium-low pitched voice, keeping her wings tented close to the black scales of her mate, who was glaring at Amethyst. “And hello, River dragon.”

Her Tempest dragon companion managed not to make a face, curling in her claws. 

“Come sit down,” the queen ordered Amethyst and Wisteria Mountain they both sat down awkwardly alongside. Wisteria Mountain dipped her head respectfully and started to walk to the end of the room. Amethyst moved over to a small ornately carved wooden seat and sat down, looking over at the other Tempest dragons, probably a part of the royal council, spaced out along the table. She saw a silver platter with honey roasted salmon and decided to go over to take a few. 

“You may all eat,” Stormcatcher announced, flicking her long near black tail. Immediately all the dragons began to eat, taking vegetable stuffed turkeys, deer and such. Royal chefs were pouring water into everyone's cups, making clattering sounds and ice hit the glass.

Everyone ate in an awkward silence, a part from a few conversations about the Tempestflight economy and such. The queen dismissed all of them. Just as Amethyst was rising out of her seat the queen whipped her head towards the two friends. 

“Stay, both of you,” she ordered sternly, accepting the napkin from Yarrowblade.

“What is it, your majesty?” Amethyst asked as boldly as she could. _There has been_ _improvement, Amethyst._ She thought to herself happily. Usually she couldn’t even stutter a word to Wisteria Mountain’s mother.

“Robin Feather, go get those letters, will you?” Yarrowblade asked a russet dragon. She swept away into the halls and a short moment later she was carrying a basket with two larch white scrolls with her tail. She gently laid it on the ground and gave two of the fine smooth papyrus pieces of paper, handing one to the purple River dragon and one to Wisteria Mountain.

They both unrolled them, taking the silver ribbons off. It said, reading it out loud:

“ _ If you are holding this letter in your talons right now, you have been invited to Juniper Academy, a social school that you have been accepted to. You will be put in a dormitory with eight dragons including you, all working together under an intense curriculum. Please meet us tomorrow at noon by the famous Juniper Hill by our new large academy, come at sharp please. You will have the first half-day to explore, meet your new roommates, and get your proper materials from our library. You will be loved, fed, and cared for in our new school. Our staff cannot wait to see you there! _

_ From, Principle Urchinwing.”  _

The two young dragons exchanged long, excited looks.

“Are we going?” Amethyst asked in a polite and kurt tone.

“You certainly will,” Stormcatcher said, pointing her black claw at her. “If it gets you out of my palace. And if my daughter wishes to go, then she can go, too. Just take a few of these,” she said, whipping her head towards a dark brown guard. He fetched the ever changing colors of the orbs of the gifting tree, and handed preciscely five of them to her royal friend.

“Thank you,” Wisteria Mountain said.

“Now you're dismissed,” Stormcatcher said. The two juvenile dragons headed out of the room, excitement radiating from both of them.

“So, are you going with me, since I’m being forced to go?” Amethyst said sheepishly.

“Of course!” Wisteria Mountain replied. “It sounds pretty interesting.”

Amethyst felt like she’d been struck with a hammer all of the sudden. “Wait, what about Sandy?”

“We can bring his terrarium with us,” Wisteria Mountain suggested.

“Yeah,” Amethyst replied, touching the cool silver door knob to their room. They spent the rest of the day preparing, packing stuff into their bags. Wisteria Mountain emptied Sandy’s terrarium to what only a few inches of water remained. Amethyst picked up the small brown shell of Sandy and put him in his kelp- smelling terrarium and threw her waterproof book bag around her shoulder, holding onto the terrarium handles grimly. Her Tempest dragon friend threw her book bag over her shoulder as well as two guards entered the room, one of them being Frost Caller, and another brown-black that Amethyst didn’t know. 

“Are you both ready?” The unfamiliar guard asked, shifting her talons as though she would burst into the sky at any moment.

_ Wait, HE’S coming with us? _ Amethyst thought, eying the pale dragon. He’s probably glad that she was getting out of the palace. Son of a cod fish! “I’m ready,” they both said simultaneously, going out to the balcony.

“Alright, let’s go,” Frost Caller grumbled as the four dragons spread their wings and heaved off into the late afternoon sky, and Amethyst had an uncertain feeling creep along her shoulders as she looked at the mountains below her. She inhaled the crisp, thin air sharply.

_ It’s just a year at Juniper Academy, isn’t it? _

Somehow, Amethyst got the feeling that was very wrong as they flew higher and higher.


	4. First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet the rest of the gang!

It was around noon when they finally arrived at the academy.

It was beautiful. With wooden and glass windows and a cleanly cut stone entrance way shaped like an arc high enough to have a dragon easily fit inside it. It was a bit hard to see this far up in the bright blue sky. It was a huge whitewash brick structure. It was up right against a small mountain, with waterfalls hustling around it like diamond sprays.  _ I will search those waterfalls for caves later.  _ Amethyst thought gleefully. Maybe something interesting will be in there, perhaps. Hundreds of dragons were swarming around the entrance that was facing the more lesser hills. Amethyst could already hear some of the clatter below. Wisteria Mountain swiftly transitioned into a dive, and Amethyst tried to as well. Northstar, her friend's little sister, was talking all throughout the day about either food, the palace, or going to the academy. Northstar’s scales were much lighter than her regal companion, but not by too much. She dove toward the ground first, and one of the guards flew down after her.

As they plummeted towards the entrance like comets, Amethyst saw others diving as well, before she realized she was about to hit the ground, she swooped her wings into an arc and landed awkwardly, nearly rolling one of her ankles.  _ I  _ need _ to work on my landings. _

Two burly looking dust colored desert dragons passed her, chattering to one another, their wings nearly whacking Amethyst’s snout. Amethyst scowled at them, then looked over her shoulder to see the two guards departing, disappearing into the mountains, only to be small specks.  _ Creepy, how easy it is to hide in the mountains. I am  _ not  _ used to that at all _ . Amethyst shuddered, then looked over at Wisteria Mountain.  _ Then again, canyons are easy to hide in as well. _

“Want to look inside and see how it is?” Amethyst asked hopefully.

“Yeah, we should probably get used to this layout,” Wisteria Mountain replied, starting to take a step forward, when a stocky, warm orange dragon sort of hurled himself in their way. He eyed them significantly with his amber eyes, then walked away as if it didn’t happen. 

“What was that for?” Wisteria Mountain hissed furiously.

Amethyst wished she could claw off his face for annoying Wisteria Mountain, the future Queen of the Tempest dragons, like that.  _ She will always be MY queen, not her mother or father, or even Northstar, assuming she gets her eating habits under control and they replace Wisteria Mountain with Northstar. _

“Anyhow, let us go inside,” she continued towards the entrance, her clawsteps echoing against the cobblestone pathway. Juniper bushes were neatly arranged in neat little rows along the pathway, their spiky little leaves shining in the sunlight as their small, blue berries looked as if they were frosted over.

When they finally reached the entrance after pushing through crowds of dragons, it was a light grey polished stone door that was at least three dragons high from snout to tail, and it was shut closed. A couple of the dragons were trying to push it open, but it was clearly locked. Amethyst looked overhead to see dark clouds cover the sun, only letting some rays of sunlight pour through. Just a moment later, it began raining, the mountain wildflower smell and pine forest was quickly muddled by rain. She liked when it rained, whenever a little droplet filled the parts in between her scales.

Dragons were starting to complain when a clicking noise was heard, and the door swung open, and the bright chandelier torchlight poured out of the interior.

Dragons immediately started pushing one another to get inside, trampling on each other’s talons and growled and yelped as they shoved each other aside. A dragon nearly flattened the end of her tail (OW!) as she hustled near her friend for protection. 

It was a beautiful open room, with one base floor and two winding staircases leading up to the next. The flawless, nearly perfect stairs only had a few little chips in them, as far as Amethyst could tell. There were white oak wooden shelves, and on them were little clocks, plants, decorative white leather books, and bundles of herbs. The crowd already started spacing out (to her relief,) and started filling the room with their chattering.

After a short moment there was a loud, chattering noise coming from the second floor of the entrance room that sounded like a bell. Most of the dragons in the space quieted down and looked up to see where the sound was coming from.

It was a dark navy-grey Ocean dragon with dark sapphire glasses and dark beacon blue fluorescent scales that was already heading to the balcony that overlooked the first floor. He looked like a black onyx in the middle of the near white room, which gave a little bit of an over dramatic look. Amethyst saw where he rang the bell, it was a huge one plastered to the wall and a long rope dangling below it, and there was a second one that seemed to guard one of the main halls.

“Hello, students!” The dragon called, flicking his shark-like tail. His voice was smooth, and it sounded like he was a professor, in a way. “I am your principal, Urchinwing, and I am very glad to see that all of you have come,” he remarked, flying off the balcony, then landed behind a white oak greyish wooden desk that was the same as the shelves leading up to the second level. “And I am very excited for this new and first year at Juniper Academy! Now, please don’t push each other and come to my desk for your placement, then feel free to explore the rest of the school.”

Just as he finished that sentence, dragons started rushing into a single file line. Willow Mountain rushed into a space that was near his desk and Amethyst obediently ran after her. They reached the dark oak beautiful desk that had reflected the light; it was perfectly cleaned and glistened with a stack of scrolls on it each with a little clay sealing on it that had an emblem Amethyst guessed it must have been for the assignment of each student or maybe an acceptance paper. There was a leafy little plant along with a little line of books about rules and eloquence, along with some metal racks behind him filled with papers and plants, and a huge rustic clock.

Amethyst looked at the dragon ahead of them, who was a beautiful, bright, ivy green dragon with a slightly darker dorsal region and veins of daffodil or wintercreeper gold, when it was finally their turn.

“Names?” Urchinwing said in a friendly way, adjusting a little strip of chalkboard that was neatly labeled with sky blue chalk,  P. Urchinwing. 

“I’m Princess Wisteria Mountain, and she is Amethyst,” Wisteria Mountain said, pointing one talon at her, then the purple river dragon. “We’ve come for our placement in the academy.” 

He took out one of the scrolls and started looking through it so fast that Amethyst was bewildered into thinking he couldn’t be reading that fast, until he stopped.

“Wisteria Mountain and Amethyst, mm?” They both nodded. “Alright, here are your maps of the academy along with your schedules,” he said, pushing two papers, one for each of them. “You two are in common room 1A. I hope you enjoy your roommates and the school!”

“Thank you sir,” her friend said.

“Thank you!” Amethyst replied to him, trotting up the stairs with her Tempest dragon companion, heading down the main hall. 

“Wanna go to our common rooms?” Wisteria Mountain asked, turning her perfect head to her friend, looking at her map of the school. 

“Sure! Is there a library?” Amethyst asked, flicking her tail excitingly.

“Of course there is! What’s a school without a _library_?” The dark grey dragon laughed, then looked down at her map, muttering to herself “1A, 1A…”

Amethyst  _ loved _ libraries. They always had fun fantasy books, sometimes if she was lucky, she found a book about Sunkenflight, a completely made up tribe that was invented years ago. Some authors had mashed together some qualities from Volcanoflight, Riverflight, and Deepflight dragons to create this mythical tribe. More authors had taken this tribe and wrote about it in their stories too. It probably wasn’t true, but it was still very interesting. Amethyst adored the Sunkenflight.

After going up the stairs that were right at the end of the main hall (and more halls that branched off of the bottom of the wide staircase) and nearly bumping into a rude dragon or two, they finally reached a room that was neatly marked “1A”. 

Amethyst was pretty sure the butterflies in her stomach had morphed into mini Zephyr dragons, tickling her with their feathers. This was it, this was her room.  _ What if Bracken goes here too?  _ Amethyst wondered. Once, Amethyst had gotten caught in a violent storm and blown all the way to the Grasslandflight Village. Bracken had cared for her during the course of an  _ entire month _ . He believed that all dragons should get along. This place was perfect for him. Amethyst hoped Bracken was in her clan, if he was here. 

It was a large, airy room when halfway through it was separated by two dark magnolia arcs with a dark beige finish. Amethyst turned to her left and found a fireplace and right next to it she saw an ornately carved Volcanoflight dragon made of snowflake obsidian holding a battle axe holding a dark greyish-redwood shield with bones and sunken ships etched into it . The statuette looked oddly… Familiar. Amethyst had a little memory of seeing something like that a long long time ago… 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a scary noise and a flash of green scales, she looked towards the flash of color but found that it was gone. She continued studying the entryway, which was nearly identical to the right. There was a dull wooden ladder on each side with a beautiful wreath, grey books, and dragon figurines. There was a light grey couch, and Amethyst went over on it. She let her tail lop over the dark grey rug that had moon phases dripping along the edge of it and inside there were lacing patterns, she observed. She looked straight ahead of her and saw a black wood burning stove where a long pipe went up and out of the school.    
Amethyst picked Sandy up out of his terrarium and set him on her snout. Wisteria Mountain scrunched her snout at Amethyst, as if placing turtles on one’s face wasn’t completely natural. Her friend sighed, going under the arc marked ‘She Dragons’ and hopped on a stone ledge that closely resembled a bed. She yanked out one of her spare white buffalo plaid blankets and shuffled herself elegantly on her bed. Amethyst jumped off the couch, put Sandy’s terrarium on a dull brown table that she neatly set to a sky blue glass pot full of white flowers and trotted over to a stone bed right under her companion’s. 

“These beds are cool,” Amethyst announced as grey talons threw her down a matching blanket. Amethyst flinched and barely managed to catch the blanket. Judging by the look on Willow Mountain’s face, she had not also screamed. Thank Somniunda.

She saw a flash of dark maroon-red scales peek through the corner of her eye, and she whirled around. A huge Volcano dragon was standing in the doorway, looking at his near black purple claws with curiosity. The dragon was oblivious and seemed to stumble while passing into the right side of the dorm, disappearing behind the wall. He came back a couple seconds later and washed his face in the waterfall separating the small dormitories. He had hints of ruby red across his scales, as if he was stained with blood. She shivered.

“Hi...! I’m Amethyst and this is Wisteria Mountain!” Amethyst announced. 

The volcano dragon turned toward Amethyst. “Umm, hello. I’m Flamewaker,” he said, taking a step away from the waterfall and walking over to the couch. 

“So, that was short.” Amethyst whispered to Wisteria Mountain. 

Flamewaker pulled out a bit of cow and began to nibble on it. 

“Nice to meet you,” he said in between bites. 

After finishing off the cow meat he reached into his satchel and dug around until he pulled out a peculiar fruit that had green red and tan skin and was oblong and had a dark stem and started to walk over to the ‘He Dragons’ side. 

The two friends sat in a long silence. Her friend narrowed her dark blue pupils around the corner, as if she wanted to drag Flamewalker out and have a proper conversation.

“Odd,” she said finally. “What type of fruit  _ was _ that? I’ve never seen it in our greenhouses.” 

“It’s a mango. Do you want a slice?” Flamewalker asked in a polite tone, gesturing to the mango. 

“A M-A-N-G-O? That’s uh… weird…” Amethyst settled.

“Have you two never heard of one?!” he exclaimed.

“Have you seen a mango bush in a mountain palace or an underground cave?” Wisteria Mountain retorted from above Amethyst. “But no, I will pass on the fruit, thank you.”

“Mangos grow in trees, nitwit,” the dark red dragon said, taking a bite of the strange fruit.

“You might want to correct that to  _ royal _ nitwit,” Wisteria Mountain said in very pinched politeness, usually used when she’s very, very irritated. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Flamewaker said, and before he could apologize or reply again, green scales burst into the room. 

They were a Jungle dragon, whose scales were the bright, ripe color of winter creepers , and neon green leafs on his branching spines. He brushed off a dead leaf from his deep, dark green horns and a chunk of dirt off of his beautifully shaded underbelly. He was sitting on his hind legs, brushing off mud and dandelion seeds from his scales. He saw his face flip towards the little waterfall, his face lightening up, and darted to the water and drank enormous gulps. Amethyst blinked several times. 

“Are you OK…?” The Volcano dragon said, resting mango tainted juice talons on his shoulder. The new dragon extended his wings, which were veined with such a pale green that were almost white, and flung up his head, panting.

“By Concussio-” he started.

“I’m… I’m OK,” the stranger said, sitting down, his neon green eyes that were tinted with chartreuse darted across the dormitory. “I was  _ told _ that we were going to have stone beds, and I was like, “No! I’m not resting on a ROCK! That’s RIDICULOUS!” And I ran out to the school gardens trying to find seeds to grow… oh, I’m Vine by the way. Is this our entire group?”

“No, we’re supposed to have one dragon from each Flight in our clan or whatever the skies above it’s called,” her friend replied from above her. Vine nodded. 

“My name is Amethyst!” Amethyst announced.

“Nice to meet you,” Vine said.

“Nice to meet you, too!” Amethyst exclaimed.  _ Did I just make new friends? Wow! _

“This is Sandy!” Amethyst said, gesturing to the turtle on her face.

“Cute, I used to have a panther. He needed to go on a quest of his own though, so I haven't seen him in a while. He was my best friend,” Vine said wistfully.  _ I have never seen a panther before! I wonder if they’re cute!  _ Amethyst thought.

“Is Sandy a snack for later, and can you share?” Flamewaker asked. What is WRONG with this dragon? Who could possibly want to EAT the cutest pet EVER?

“NO! HE IS  _ NOT _ A  _ SNACK! _ HE IS MY PET AND ITS BARBARIC AND RUDE TO EVEN ASK A QUESTION LIKE THAT!” Amethyst yelled at him. Wisteria Mountain blinked several times, then snickered slightly.

“I was just asking, what's wrong with that?!” Flamewaker asked, also snickering slightly, as Amethyst stormed out of the room.

_ I am going to the library first, _ Amethyst decided grumpily.

It took four tries to find it. Amethyst needed to work on her directions. Uh, badly apparently. When she finally did find it, it was by accident. One dragon, a blue river dragon who looked familiar, who was walking past accidentally bumped her, and she fell through some open doors and into the library. He looked at her turtle with his light blue eyes, frowned, then walked away. It was hard to tell if he was familiar or not, the airy feel was throwing her usual cave vision off.

Beautiful pale wood shelves were everywhere, loaded with white leather books from above to below. And in the middle of it was a huge ebony wood desk that had an artificial waterfall trickling from behind it, landing in dark square stones, accompanied with cups. At the desk was a placid looking amber scaled Grassland dragon, sorting something under her desk. Her scales were tainted with bright, vibrate orange, creating a beautiful natural look. Amethyst felt the smooth stone floor beneath her, smoother and softer than any stone she’d ever seen, and trotted up to the desk. 

“Hello!” she said to the Librarian. 

“Hello there dear, I’m Buckwheat. Are you looking for something?” she asked, continuing to sort the items under her desk with her tired orange-amber eyes.

“Do you have any books on the Sunkenflight?” Amethyst asked, resting her front talons on the desk. The librarian nodded, going over to a corner section of the library, pulling out a medium sized white leather book that matched all the others. ‘ Journey Through The Deep ’.  _ It looks interesting, _ Amethyst thought. 

“Thanks!” Amethyst said.

“Your welcome,” she said, but before Amethyst could walk off, she tapped her with her dark orange claw.

“Yeah?” she said, turning her neck around.

“I forgot to say, here’s your library card,” Buckwheat said, handing her a small, flat piece of smooth bark with her name and her dormitory number neatly written on it, along with a beautiful “J.A.” with many plants and spiky leaves carved in the bottom right corner, along with a weird polygon symbol in the left.

“What is this?” She asked, studying it.

“We're trying out this system,” Buckwheat explained, fiddling with a bark pencil. “You see, every time you check out a book, we write the book's name under your little symbol, and cross it out when you return it. Saves space for long names like tempest dragons.”

“Huh. OK!” She said, tucking it into her book bag. She walked over to a couch that was identical to the one in her common room, and lay down, letting her tail flop over one of the arms of the couch. Amethyst began to read. 

Amethyst read for a few minutes before an actual Sunken dragon was introduced. 

“... He was thinner than any Dragon I had ever seen. You could see the outline of his skull, and his ribs stuck so far out that he looked almost like a skeleton, and he was extremely malnourished. Several pieces of his tail were missing, as if they had been bitten off. He carried a trident made of what looked like dragon bone, and the ends were stained dark crimson. His teeth were yellow, and his eyes were milky white, but I was sure he could see me, or at least sense me. He smelled terrible, and the smell was enhanced with strong hints of salt. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if his throat was lined with teeth and claws and scraped out with a crocodile tail. He spoke in a different language, composed of shrieks and growls …” Amethyst frowned. Why were the words going in and out of focus? Amethyst then realized she was falling asleep. Why am I falling asleep? This is INTERESTING. But, maybe a little nap wouldn’t hurt… Amethyst then quietly slipped into a black nothing, drifting off into a deep sleep beyond dreams. 

“Amethyst?” a voice asked. “Amethyst, is it really you?”

Amethyst opened her eyes, half expecting to see Wisteria Mountain, or Vine, not the dragon that this voice belonged to. 

The familiar beautiful brown scaly dorsal scales and bright ivy green scales came into view. The familiar dark reddish brown horns shone delicately in the natural light and a nice gold ombre that faded from his back scales made him look like a late summer leaf. His ventral region was a nice lime green, and his wings were the color of a duller, more muted neon green.

“Bracken?” she asked in a small voice, staring into his vibrant lime green eyes that were lit up with wondrous flecks of gold. Then she sat up straight, rubbing her eyes. “You ARE here!” She said, hopping off the couch, seizing his talons, and accidentally brushed one of his wings with hers.

“Hi! Did you finally find your Tempest dragon?” Bracken asked.

“Yes! We came here together. Oh no! I ran off, she's probably so worried!” Amethyst suddenly noticed the dragons behind him. An angry looking scarlet Volcano dragon, a tiny sapphire Ocean dragon, a bored looking deep brown Swamp dragon, and…. A blue River dragon who she DEFINITELY recognized. Amethyst scowled.

“What’s wrong?” Bracken asked.

“Driftwood. Long time no see,” Amethyst growled, ignoring Bracken.

“Amethyst,” Driftwood snarled, lowering his neck like a panther ready to pounce. Something flickered in his eyes, but she wasn’t good at reading expressions. 

They stood there glaring at each other, Driftwoods light blue eyes staring at her with hatred like a fierce piranha. He scrunched up his snout, then turned to the Ocean dragon. He gave Bracken his best murderous glare. The Volcano dragon scrunched up her snout, which was lined with claw scars. 

“Sapphire, come!” he grunted and walked away, his smug cerulean blueish-brown tail slithering on the floor. The vibrant dark blue dragon ran after him, her talons trodding on the floor and accidentally whacking a bookshelf with her ridiculously small, navy blue wing. Driftwood was in her class when she was in school back at her old home. He was always rubbing his intelligence in everyone's face, not that he had any, and was so arrogant when he wouldn’t play games with her when she would rather be reading a book. Amethyst eventually grew a hate for him, and he rudely returned the favor, always snapping at her when she was actually OK with him for two seconds.

“He is an arrogant idiot I went to school with, and he was even more idiotic when  _ I _ got a turtle. He was once my friend, but he betrayed me. Over the course of a year he became mean, and we eventually grew to hate each other,” Amethyst said, narrowing her eyes in the direction he went in.

“I see,” he said. “He is in my clan.”  _ Of course they put one of the worst dragons with one of the best _ , Amethyst told herself.

“So, how have you been?” she asked, trying to start a new conversation.

“Pretty good, a lot quieter without you,” Bracken said. “Pretty much the same.”

“Well that’s the opposite of me,” she laughed. “I’ve literally been living in a palace full of dragons who either are OK with me or dislike me. But, hey, I got you, her, and Sandy, right? That’s all I need. And books, DEFINITELY books.”

He chucked, nodding.

Amethyst looked over to another couch across the room, only to find her friend sitting on it reading a thick encyclopedia.  _ Wisteria Mountain certainly has a weird taste in books.  _ She liked non-fiction books, but she’s found reading an award winning fantasy adventure novel from time to time.

“Oh! There she is,” Amethyst said, and she realized her tail was entwined with his. Embarrassed, she let go, but a little part of her wished that their tails were still twisted and that Amethyst didn’t want to let go. Her tail felt lonely now, which was a bit silly, she told herself. 

Bracken looked over and studied Wisteria Mountain. He quirked up one eye, then nodded, turning back to her with his peaceful expression. 

“I hope you survive THAT dragon,” she huffed, pointing in the direction Driftwood went in, letting go of his talons. “Well, I’ll see you around, Bracken!”

“You too,” he said, grinning at her with all his teeth, then went over to browse the books, grazing his talons over certain sections, muttering to himself. Amethyst sighed, then walked across the huge library to her friend, tapping her shoulder friskily, but lightly. 

She grumbled to herself, then looked up haughtily, putting a scrap of leaf as a bookmark and closing it. “Wh- oh, there you are, Amethyst,” she said, standing up.

“Hey,” she said. Wait. Where was Sandy? Her head swivelled around frantically, then felt something scaly bump into her tail, then tilted her head down only to find her small turtle tagging along her tail. Alright. Good. “How did you find me?” she asked.

Wisteria Mountain flexed her front talons regally, then snorted. “Well, I would have to search every single library and eventually run into you.”

“True,” Amethyst laughed, picking up her turtle and putting him on her shoulder snuggly, stroking his smooth head with the back of one of her talons. “Very true.”

“Come on, it will be the grand opening dinner soon.” Wisteria Mountain announced.

“I took a looong nap. Wait. Grand opening dinner?” Amethyst noticed out loud.

“Yeah, it’s going to be a huge feast. I went out on one of the hunting parties when I saw you asleep, then came back here.”

Wisteria Mountain chuckled. “Anyways, who was that Grassland dragon?”

Amethyst felt her scales grow warm. “He's an old… Friend,” Amethyst announced nervously. “Have you met the others in the clan yet?” Amethyst hoped that Wisteria Mountain would take that topic of conversation instead. The truth was, Amethyst wasn’t sure WHAT Bracken was to her. She certainly didn’t want to talk about it with Wisteria Mountain before she herself could untangle her feelings for Bracken.

She felt like her friend hesitated for the shortest moment, then she shook her head. “No, I haven’t. But that annoying Swamp dragon that we met in the school's outer courtyard is in our group. I’ll have to deal with him for the rest of the year though, so I might have to get used to him,” she sighed aggressively, fixing her necklace. It was bejeweled with dark grey blue diamonds, with a branching flower effect with small little gems on the inside. To the sides of the centerpiece were two crescent moon shaped blue diamonds facing away from it, creating a long, beautiful chain-string. Three little diamond tear shaped ovals, like little dewdrops in the morning grass, dangled down from it as Wisteria Mountain got it untangled from her bowtie.

Amethyst wasn’t sure how to respond to that information, so she stayed quiet while Wisteria Mountain explained his overall terribleness. 

Amethyst was pretty tempted to kill him herself when they got back to the cave to drop off Sandy. 

“Amethyst?!” a small squeaky familiar dragonet voice exclaimed.

Amethyst looked down in surprise. There was a small River dragon dragonet with three legs who was so lightly colored purple that sometimes it could be mistaken for rose pink. Her eyes were a dull indigo, and always so big, as if everything surprised her. She awkwardly hopped over to them, fluently but wobbly.

“Minnow?” Amethyst asked in shock.

“It IS you!” Minnow exclaimed in pure profound joy, running over and hugging Amethyst in delight.

“This is Minnow, Driftwood’s little sister. Minnow, this is Wisteria Mountain, the dragon who I've been living with for the past year.” Amethyst said, tilting herself over to the slightly stocky and tall dragon.

Minnow ran up and seized Wisteria Mountain’s talons. She blinked, craning her neck in its usual courtly, blue-blooded regalness. “YOU’RE Northstar’s big sister, she says so many good things about you! When she’s not tasting all the plants in our room anyway… Oh, right, I’m in Northstars group. We're 9E!” Minnow announced, flicking her tail from side to side like an over enthusiastic coyote.

Wisteria Mountain looked alarmed, and like she wasn’t sure if she should growl or throw Minnow off her.

“Is it true that they don’t have Voryzaris in Tempestflight territory?” Minnow asked, her eyes widening. 

“You memorized the official name for riceist beans! No, they don’t have them,” Amethyst said.

“Oh no! That’s terrible,” Minnow said, reaching into her book bag and taking out a small jar with a red lid. “Here! Take this! Later you should ask one of the Riverflight teachers if you can have more! My big brother will back you up!” Minnow exclaimed happily. Wisteria Mountain, politely, shook her head and gave the jar back to the dragonet. Confused, she sighed and gave her friend a ‘suit yourself’ look and put it back in a violet bag with trouts embroidered on it.

“Minnow, your big brother doesn’t like me anymore,” Amethyst explained for the hundredth time. This dragonet could never remember that Driftwood hated Amethyst. She put on a set of talons over her face.

“Really? I’m going to go ask him why!” Minnow said, and ran down the hallway right when the familiar blue scales slipped away.

“That dragonet is weird,” Wisteria Mountain observed. Amethyst giggled, and sighed. “She kept interrupting me when I was trying to say to respect a royal a little more. Then again, she’s a dragonet,” she added, partially to herself.

“That's probably going to cause unnecessary drama,” She remarked.

Wisteria Mountain nodded.

“Anyhow, do you want to head to the dinner thing?” Amethyst asked. “I think it should be soon, if I read the bulletin board right.”

“Yes, we should, I’m starving,” she said royally, filling up a dish of water for Sandy and laying down in the bowl.

“Alright, let’s go!” Amethyst said as they walked through the spacious hall, chattering and laughing.

They reached the entrance to the school, then went down into a cave that went straight forward, only to hollow out into a huge cave.

Neat, dark wooden dining tables filled up most of the space. Dragons were sitting down, chatting to each other, on white steel stools. No one had food on their white platter set yet, which was interesting. Huge candles were in the center, surrounded by fake green garlands, along with little wooden tabs marked with numbers like “2B” or “10C”.

_ So where's 1A?  _ Amethyst wondered, and Wisteria mountain gave her a beckoning expression, before trotting off regally as she reluctantly followed, trying to study the room.

Their table was around the end of the room, and Vine and Flamewalker were sitting down on opposite ends of the table, talking to each other.

“Hey guys!” She called, sitting with her friend.

“Hello,” Vine replied.

“Hey Amethyst,” Flamewalker said, letting out a burst of flame to light up the candles. Amethyst looked at the kitchen. It was huge, asserted with an white river granite island and very comfortable chairs. The one in the middle looked like a throne, which was probably for the teachers and Urchinwing. A galvanized dessert display tray was arrayed with granny smith apples, along with glass pots filled with greens. Little white rectangular tiles were arrayed below shelves of spices and silverware storage, and hanging from there were copper pans which were being snatched by chefs speedily preparing the feast.

“Have you met the others in our clan?” She asked awkwardly.

“No,” Flamewalker said. “A few minutes after you stormed off, Vine and I went to go explore the school on our own.”

But before Amethyst could respond, a loud gong noise nearly toppled her ears right off.

“Hello again, students!” Urchinwing said from somewhere above her. He was mounted on a chandelier that was right next to the kitchen, along with a bell, about one hundred feet in the air. “Thank you for coming for the opening feast, but first I have a few things to say.

“First, our staff and I are very excited that you came to Juniper Academy. We have prepared our feast to welcome our first students of the future. Now, you might ask, “Students of the future?” Why, yes! We entrust the future within the next generation, and for many generations to come, hopefully! Well, I hope you enjoy the food and we hope you have a great year at the academy!” 

The chefs bursted out with platters of food, whisking to their table first and pouring platters onto plates. Honey smoked salmon, wild turkey, fresh picked vegetables, herons, cranes, wild strawberries and bear and several desserts. It was only a few seconds before they headed back to the kitchen and went to 1B. It soon became 1H, 2A, 7E, and finally 10H. 

“You may begin!” Urchinwing announced and a whole calamity of chatter suddenly broke the silence.

She saw a flutter of scales, and a few dragons bolted down to the stools and sat on them hastily, lapis wings flapping to balance the dragon. Amethyst blinked in surprise. She saw dark sapphire scales, as if he was carved of dark blue jewels, and cerulean-beacon blue eyes stared at the fish significantly.

“Hello!” Amethyst said to the Ocean dragon.

“Hi!” He said, waving his aqua navy blue talons at her. “And you all are…?”

“I’m Amethyst, that's Flamewaker, he’s Vine-”

“Hello, and  _ I’m  _ Wisteria Mountain,” her friend said. “And who are you?”

“I’m Hurricane, and that’s Mudslide,” he said, pointing at the warm orange dragon who was sitting down.

“Hello,” Wisteria Mountain said regally to the Swamp dragon, barely managing to keep her voice dripping with thorns and claws. She then grabbed some food and dropped it onto her plate. 

Flamewaker heaped his plate high with croissants and fruit with some bits of meat while Amethyst grabbed some crayfish out of her bag and some of the salmon.

“What's your favorite food? These are mine,” Amethyst asked, gesturing to her food.

“Hmfns,” Flamewaker said with his mouth full of chocolate. It gave the unsettling look that he had dried blood on his teeth. Amethyst shuddered. 

“You mean  _ humans _ ?” A Cobra dragon asked.

Amethyst turned around. His scales were whitish-yellow, like sand dunes being shone on in midday light. He had cheetah-like markings under his eyes and black diamonds running across his hood and body. He was a little plump, with a sweet curve to his snout and underbelly.

“Ymhs,” Flamewaker said, nodding.

“Why in the skies above are you speaking with your mouth full, Flamewaker?” Wisteria Mountain hissed turkey breath at him.

“Mmmnmmnf,” he shrugged, taking a bite into a croissant. 

She saw a familiar flash of brown and lime scales.  _ Bracken! _ She thought, her face lighting up. Why am I this excited? Amethyst asked herself.

Except it wasn’t Bracken. This dragon had a lot more yellow tinted accents and golden scales on their tail and legs.

Amethyst scowled.  _ Now I am seeing Bracken in places he isn’t. Though the resemblance is striking.  _

__ _ Wait… _

“Lemongrass?” Amethyst asked tentatively. Right. Bracken’s sister. How could she forget? Lemongrass was usually pretty nice to her, and they shared a love for books. Though Amethyst had seen her angry, and it was not pleasant for the dragon the anger was directed at. During her times at Bracken’s home, she usually found her curled up in a corner drinking lemonade and, yes, reading a book, or chatting with her and Braken’s older sister, Maize.

“Amethyst?” Lemongrass asked.

“Why do you keep running into dragons you know?” Wisteria Mountain asked. “Then again, all my acquaintances are back at the palace.”

“It is crazy how I seem to find an old friend at every corner,” Amethyst admitted. “This is Lemongrass, Bracken’s sister, Lemongrass, this is Wisteria Mountain, Flamewaker, Mudslide, I don’t know the Cobra dragon’s name yet, Vine, and Hurricane.”

“I’m Cactus,” The Cobra dragon announced friendly, hastily grabbing a slice of some type of bread that Amethyst had never seen before, and a bowl of pot roast. Wisteria Mountain then grabbed a caramel apple with candied chocolates on it and started to slice it.

“Nice to meet you, Cactus,” Amethyst said.

The group sat down and chatted for a while, until finally the school was dismissed. They went into their common room as Amethyst read her Sunkenflight book, until she finally went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick, many of the characters are modeled after someone we know;  
> Amethyst: Brianna  
> Wisteria Mountain: Brooke (my gf)  
> Lemongrass: take a wild guess  
> Hurricane: Dustyn  
> Flamewalker: Bodhhi (I think that's how you spell it-)  
> Cobra: Calen  
> Mudslide: Holden  
> Vine: Wyatt  
> Braken: Micheal  
> Northstar: Brooke's little sister, Addy  
> (There's more but you guys don't know them yet hehe-)


	5. Dawn

Amethyst woke up to talons lightly tapping her shoulders. She mumbled a sleepy complaint that she herself could not hear, tossed over to the wall and flung her blanket over her.

“Amethyst, do you want to be late?” A voice asked.

Amethyst pretended not to hear. A short pause.

“Amethyst, please, for the love of Mundus, GET  _ OUT _ OF BED. That's an order from your queen. I do not want to be late, and I’m sure you don’t either,” Wisteria Mountain demanded.

Amethyst’s tail flopped out of bed and onto the floor.

“I could dump water on her,” The first voice, Lemongrass, said to her friend. They were chatting quite a lot last night, and it had been particularly annoying for her when she finally wanted to go to sleep.

Amethyst curled up tighter under her blanket, and groaned.

“Amethyst, what if we end up in a class with Bracken?” Wisteria Mountain asked.

Amethyst crawled out of her messy nest of blankets. “How was that going to work?” she asked. 

Wisteria Mountain grinned, and shrugged.

“I just knew it would. And since there’s so many groups, we’ll have a group or two come along,” she announced.

“Wait… Amethyst, do you have a  _ crush  _ on my brother?” Lemongrass asked skeptically, narrowing her gold eyes at her and smirking.

“Ack! No! Where did that come from? Bracken is just a friend!” Amethyst squeaked.  _ An insanely awesome beautiful  _ friend, Amethyst’s brain whispered treacherously. WHY _? _ Amethyst demanded of her brain. Amethyst’s brain did not answer, as it usually did. She sighed.

“Bracken is nice and very awesome, but he is just a friend,” Amethyst repeated.

Wisteria Mountain and Lemongrass started laughing, and a moment later, so did Amethyst.

“What’s our next class?” Amethyst asked.

“I think it's battle training or art class,” Lemongrass said, turning to the dark grey dragon to the left of her. 

“Or perhaps it's a small group discussion, to meet everyone even though we know everyone,” Wisteria Mountain said.

“Okay, THEN comes battle class or art class,” Lemongrass said. “I remember one of those classes being at the beginning of the day.”

“Here, I’m rubbish at map reading,” Amethyst grumbled, pulling out her map and handing it to Wisteria Mountain.

Wisteria Mountain led them to the classroom, and Lemongrass was correct about battle training being first. Wisteria Mountain handed Amethyst back her map.

The girls finally arrived in a tall airy tower where these classes were, and were used for study groups, according to Lemongrass. She nearly conked her out a few times, since the halls were so narrow. They reached the top at a cobblestone door that neatly was printed “1A” and a few doors next to it that went down to “1H”. Her Grassland dragon friend took the black steel and knocked politely.

A moment later the door swung open, revealing a huge yellow Cobra dragon with a long scar that started from his snout to the right side of his neck. He had a wide, strong build, and he had cheetah-like markings under his eyes, like Cactus, but more razor sharp, like needles.

“Come on in,” he said in a low, grumbly voice.

Something about this dragon scared Amethyst. Amethyst wished Bracken was there to twine tails, or brush wings with her. Anything comforting.  _ What's  _ wrong  _ with me? Usually I wish for  _ any  _ dragon. Why the change?  _ Amethyst wondered if Wisteria Mountain and Lemongrass were right.  _ Do I really have a crush on Bracken? _

_ Probably not. I’m just close to him, that’s all. _

As they entered the room, they noticed Mudslide was already there.

“Look who finally decided to show up,” he said, barking a dry laugh.

Wisteria Mountain rolled her eyes.

"I'm professor Adder,” The teacher said, with a smirk, beckoning them to sit down in old pale wood chairs. “I’ll be your battle training teacher. Please, come sit down and let’s introduce ourselves. And Mudslide, you are the one talking about, decidin’ to finally show up, you just got up here.”

Mudslide looked wounded, growling toothily. “You’re  _ supposed  _ to be on  _ MY _ side for this, just  _ agree _ , by the sky’s above.”

Adder laughed a deep, bellow-like laugh, backing up.

Everyone walked over to the chairs, sitting down. Amethyst chose one at the far end of the room, as far away from Professor Adder as possible. Willow Mountain sat to her right and Lemongrass sat down next to her. Professor Adder sat down next to Mudslide, crinkling his old, near white wizened snout at the Swamp dragon. 

Suddenly, they heard claws sprinting against the stone, and Vine showed up at the door, panting. He collapsed on the ground, legs outstretched.

“H-hi,” He gasped, and walked over to collapse into the nearest chair, the one left of Professor Adder’s chair. Adder widened his black eyes at the Jungle dragon.

Amethyst wrinkled her snout at him.

“Did you  _ run  _ all the way here?” she asked.

“Yes,” Vine gasped. “What else do you think I did? Drag myself across the floor?” He added smiling.

“No, my awesomeness knocked the breath out of him,” Mudslide said before Amethyst could answer, stretching his wings out as far as they could go and making an elegant pose.

Cactus and Flamewaker appeared at the door, deep in conversation.

“OVER HERE!” Lemongrass called as they almost walked past it. Cactus looked embarrassed as they scooted back and entered the room. Flamewaker in the chair left of Vine and Cactus sat next to Flamewaker.

Amethyst wished Bracken was there, his ivy green scales and smooth voice would soothe her and she wouldn't be so scared of being beat up by her new friends. Wisteria Mountain lightly brushed her wing against hers.  _ Wisteria Mountain is the bestest friend I could ever ask for.  _

“Wait-Adder? You’re-” Cactus started.

He smirked. “Yes, yes I am,” he responded. What? Amethyst thought. Adder is the what?

She realized that Cactus was studying her face after a long pause. “He is, well,  _ was _ one of the defenders of our Capital, wielding one of the enchanted giant stone spears,” he said, using talon gestures.

Adder’s old snout winced, and she also realized he had a badly twisted and crushed foot. Scales were ripped off, cutting through many layers of muscles and ligaments. His foot was twisted so badly that Amethyst could almost see the back of his leg and demolished foot.

“ _ Enchanted _ stone spears?” Flamewaker asked sharply as Wisteria Mountain sparked with vigilant interest.

“Well, why don’t we introduce ourselves?” Adder said in a friendly tone, ignoring the Volcano dragon. Well, what she could get of a friendly tone. “I’m your Battle trainin’ teacher, Professor Adder. One of… my favorite colors is yellow. And if you would like to add on anything, you may.” he let out a growl. “Sorry, not used to this sorta stuff. After I got my leg injury I was harassed by the young blue fellow you call yer’ principle. Anyways, if any of you whippersnappers want to start, then go ahead.”

“I am Wisteria Mountain,” her friend started. “Daughter of Queen Stormcatcher and heir to the throne of Tempestflight. My favorite color is black, and I came here to learn as much as possible to be an educated queen,” Wisteria Mountain said with a haughty tone. 

“A  _ princess?!  _ Hi there, I am VERY  _ sophisticated _ ,” Mudslide mocked Wisteria Mountain as she scowled at him and bared her snow white teeth.

“No need for  _ quite _ the attitude, but thank you for the attention,” she snorted, mocking him back and Mudslide scowled at her.

“Uh, hi,” Amethyst started nervously, trying to stop the conflict from escalating. “I’m Amethyst. I have a pet turtle, Sandy, and I love him. My favorite color is, ironically, purple.”

Cactus chortled. She gave him an approving look. He blinked slowly, then opened his mouth to speak.

“Hello,” he said in his quiet, friendly-ish voice. “I’m Cactus. My favorite color is yellow, and I love bread.”

“Hi!” Hurricane started, then launched abruptly into speech. “I’m Hurricane! My favorite color is navy blue. I’m very excited to be here!”

“Mhm,” Flamewaker said. “Hello, I’m Flamewaker, my favorite activity is hunting, and my favorite color is purple.” He said, touching the dark alexandrite skull earring in his ear. Amethyst blinked.  _ That  _ was unexpected, she’d never even  _ thought  _ his favorite color would ever be purple. “My favorite  _ food _ is humans.”

“Geez, alright,” Vine said, turning to him.

“What?! I’m getting judged for eating humans now?” Flamewaker snapped at him, flaring out his carnelian veined wings.

“Settle down,” Adder oozed at them.

“Anyways,” Vine said, rolling his eyes. “I’m Vine. My favorite color is green, obviously, I used to have an animal friend like Amethyst did, and I’m, uh, excited to get into school.” 

“That’s nice,” Lemongrass said, who had been blissfully listening the entire time. “I’m Lemongrass, my favorite color is also yellow, and I’m also excited to be here.” 

“A  _ lot _ of yellow fans,” Mudslide muttered.

“You know,” Wisteria Mountain said in her regular regal tone of voice. “All of the very closed-minded dragons always have their mouths open. So, please, keep yours closed for a little bit, will you?”

Mudslide hissed at her. “I don’t want to associate with a low-living dragon like you, we all have a lot more important things to do. I’m sorry if you do not understand that. No one here cares about your little snappy comments you make, as it won’t hurt us. Now could you please stop?” Her friend said before the Swamp dragon could reply.

“Both of you, stop it how bout,” Adder hissed. Mudslide let out a low, ferocious growl while her dark grey friend nodded.

“Sorry,” Wisteria Mountain said.

“Well,” Mudslide said. “I’m Mudslide, as you all know, and my favorite color is orange. Not that excited to be here.”

Adder sat in his chair for a short moment.

“Anything else y’all wanna share?” He asked. Everyone shook their heads, but Cactus was raising his set of talons.

“Yes?” Adder said, turning to the Cobra dragon.

“I have a question for her,” He said, pointing at Wisteria Mountain.

“What’s your question, Cactus?” She asked.

“How did you and Amethyst meet? I’m generally curious. I don’t exactly see you trotting around.

As her friend started to speak, Amethyst started to remember.

She was four years old, relaxing in her family’s  _ very own  _ hot springs. She didn’t have a turtle yet, but hey, life was fine, you know? She had books. And Driftwood.

Books never said anything to you or judged you. Books were her only friend, since making actual dragon friends was hard. And, hey, talking to other dragons was hard too, didn’t anyone else think it was hard? Her father said she needed to work on her social skills, but she honestly didn’t care. Her father had gotten on her nerves  _ many,  _ many times before, and after all those little talks they had, she finally decided that she didn’t give three pebbles about it, easily brushing it off her shoulder.

She let her back submerge completely while she closed her eyes, the warm heat drifting her off into a sleepy trance. Steam enveloped her scales, and the water soothed her bones. Everywhere the water touched her, her muscles relaxed, her body soothed. She tilted her head back, letting her neck relax as she tilted up towards the ceiling, closing her eyes and slipping off into nothing.

Her ears were enveloped underwater, drifting her off into a deeper stage of sleep when she started to hear noises.

Were those wingbeats coming from outside? Little Amethyst had no idea. Was she dreaming those?

Nope. They were going into the higher caves, where the River palace was located.

Amethyst teetered to her side, flopping her stomach into the springs, swimming like a caiman to the rocky shore and standing up, grabbing a towel and drying off. Once she was dry, she headed outside, avoiding obstacles such as stalagmites as she slithered through.

Snowflakes immediately assaulted her nose as she looked up. The canyon was illuminated by light grey overcast sky, and her neighbors were cleaning off snow from their window sills, watching the flurry happen wistfully. The sun had been obscured, only a dim light that she could look at. The cold, unforgiving weather chilled her scales and made her shiver, making her talons tremble. She spread her light purple wings and flew up to the ground balcony of the palace, shivering as she scrambled up onto the rocky ledge.

It was an enormous, hollowed out cave that had a stone palace in front of it that was bejeweled with agates and turquoise in an interesting mosaic pattern. Several turtles were carved into the wall as well as a turtle archway guarded the gate, and she saw a dark tail slip inside.

_ Should I really be doing this? _ She thought as she pressed her talons along the cobblestone pathway. There weren't any guards posted at the door, which was odd, as she heaved the heavy door open.

A moment later, a wave of dragons hurled out of the right balconies and only a frontal one, disappearing so fast she couldn’t process who it was, making Amethyst  _ this close _ to screaming her head off as they flew efficiently and quickly like bats. Three of them were dark, definitely  _ not _ Riverflight dragons, but she caught the chilly wind currents from outside and flew up to the balcony, throwing out one arm to grab the fence and climb up and over it.

This was, apparently, a council room, as a long white table as dragons were seated in white steel turtle ottomans. The room smelled heavily of seafood, dried kelp and fish dripping from the tables.

Her father, Canyon, flicked his blue-brown tail and covered his yawn politely, and turned to the balcony and saw Amethyst.

He sat up, trotted over to her, and gave his daughter his best murderous glare and toothy scowl. “What are you doing here?!” he hissed, flicking his pink tongue at her. Amethyst scrunched back, setting her neck between her shoulders.

But before Amethyst could respond, she heard a black Tempest dragon ruffle her wings.

“Wisteria Mountain, please, go downstairs,” she ordered a dragonet about Amethyst’s age, staring at the dark grey dragon with her electrocuted cyan eyes.

“Yes, mother- Queen Stormcatcher,” the stranger said, getting off her ottoman and creaking open a door, disappearing in seconds. Hmmm.

Once Amethyst’s father stopped scolding her, she crouched down low and slithered across the room.

“You know that there might be a war starting over who will get to own Black Treasure beach,” the familiar voice of King Rapid said as she halted to a stop instinctively. “So exactly why did you come here, when you have the best military in all of Enocoasis?”

Amethyst started to walk again.

“I came here for an alliance,” the Tempest dragon called Stormcatcher said patiently. “You're the closest dragons we have, and others might have alliances to. Even our army can’t truly handle two whole Flight’s armies without having so many casualties and deaths.”

“So what is in it for us?” Queen Cascade’s voice asked.

“If we win this potential war,” Stormcatcher said, “Then we  _ both _ get to mine the blacksand beaches treasure. Half and half, wouldn’t you say?”

A short pause.

“Do you think we should do it?” Cascade asked Rapid.

“We might have to,” he said. “Stormcatcher has a point- the others might be making alliances as well, and they are a powerful force.”

“So, what will you say?” A new, unfamiliar voice asked.

She heard sme whispering as she stood up, creaking open the door and following the Tempest dragon princess.

_ Downstairs, downstairs… _ Amethyst thought as she wandered around the hallways. She found a dip in the corner…

_ Aha!  _ Amethyst thought triumphantly, bolting downstairs, nearing tripping down the dark, lukewarm rough hewn stairs. She leaped off the last few, finding the same dragon looking out a window bench, watching the snowstorm as thousands of snowflakes were hurled to the ground in a white mass. She vigilantly approached the end of the hall as she went unnoticed.

“Hi!” Amethyst announced gleefully as the beautiful dragon whipped around with startled green eyes, then narrowed them suspiciously.

“Hi,” she replied awkwardly, having a regal tone in her voice. “Who are you?”

“I’m Amethyst, Wisteria Mountain!” she replied. 

“How did you know my name?!” she said, sitting up and puffing her chest out, frowning slightly, but yet still trying to be polite.

“I, uh… sorry,  _ THAT _ was awkward of me, I overheard it a minute ago,” she had replied, eventually starting to talk to each other. It was slow at first, but engaged quickly as they became sort of like friends.

“It was nice knowing you,” her new acquaintance said, and she had-

“And that’s how I met Amethyst,” Wisteria Mountain said, breaking Amethyst’s memory right in half like a snapping bone.

“That clarifies things a lot,” Cactus said, flicking his greyish tan rattle at the end of his tail, subsiding in his chair. 

“Alright,” Professor Adder said, tapping his claws against the table loudly, making Amethyst flinch. “You lot, follow me,” he said bluntly, standing up out of his chair and limping out the door. The group followed him as he lockpicked a window and swung it open, diving out.

“Uh, are we supposed to do that-” Lemongrass asked.

“Come on!” He called in the late dawn air that whisked through the corridor. Flamewaker dove out the window almost immediately, and her friend not a moment behind him. She jumped out, letting the air catch her wings. It was a beautiful sky, hinted with swirls of blue and scarlet and orange as if they all had been melted together. All the stars had disappeared, and the sun was a golden orange ball that was blinding to look at.

“Where are we going?” Vine shouted, kicking his back legs against the white brick as a start as he spread out his wings.

“Were startin’ class for the day, kid!” Adder shouted back, taking a dive towards the outer school courtyard, taking a sharp turn right. They followed him in a single file line with no argument, landing by the stairs.

To the far left there was a crate of towels, cloth, and a wide barrel of steaming water, which made Amethyst extremely nervous.  _ So we are going to be beating each other up,  _ she thought, shivering as they landed.

“Sit down,” he ordered and Amethyst shivered so hard that she thought she might knock herself over. Lemongrass and Wisteria Mountain sat next to her, her dark grey friend brushing her wing against hers in a comforting way.

“Alright then,” Adder said once everyone sat down in a loose order. “Welcome to battle trainin’ class.

Here you will hone your skills as a true fighting dragon, preparin’ each of ‘ya as a future defender of yer’ flight. If you injure y’self, there’s stuff over there if you need it. We will start off one on one battles, then learn battle techniques. Any questions?”

There was a short silence. “Alright, Hurricane and Cactus are up first,” he said, pointing at the two as they stood up. Cactus stood up extremely confidently, while Hurricane stood up nervously as the two went out into the short clearing.

“Start!” he roared. Cactus crouched down, unsheathing all four sets of talons, then leaped into the air and went for the sapphire dragon. His eyes went wide as he clawed at the Cobra dragon, retreating to the side of him and launching at his side, crashing into him.

“Oof!” Hurricane yelped. Cactus dodged Hurricanes claws and raked his talons on Hurricane's side flank. The dragon roared in pain and then beat Cactus’ head violently with his wings, throwing Cactus down. The yellow dragon got back up in milliseconds, swiping at Hurricanes neck, drawing a little bit of blood, almost tearing through his thick gills. The Ocean dragon yowled, clawing back and biting his neck. He swung his tail rattle and started beating the other dragon's head repeatedly, firing a jet of flames as the blue dragon barely dodged them.

Cactus dived at the dragon, tackling him. Hurricane rolled away and got back on his talons, then the Cobra dragon moved slightly and then dug his claws into the stone and launched himself at Hurricane, then Hurricane got in a defensive position and with a loud, jarring thud the two dragons crashed together. They were grappling and wrestling for a short moment before Cactus pinned Hurricane to the ground. Hurricane crumbled his hind legs together and kicked Cactus with all out force in his stomach, then reeled forward, as if the navy blue dragon was doing a somersault, and shook him off.

“Alright you two,” Adder said and the duo stopped their battle. Cactus walked towards the crate and threw the rich blue dragon a towel, with him barely catching it.

“You did good,” Cactus remarked friendly towards him.

“You too,” Hurricane replied. Adder whipped his head towards the group, analyzing the dragons with an emotionless expression.

“Vine and Amethyst,” he said after a few seconds while her wings drooped. “Yer’ in.” Amethyst slowly stepped out, antagonized by fear, inching forward as her dark purple claws scraped the cobblestone. Vine looked at her significantly, as if he was excited to find out her battle style, not that she had one.

“Start!” he roared again. Amethyst hunched back, flicking her tail and growling. Well, trying to growl. The ivy green dragon plunged his talons into the ground, making one of the juniper bushes grow a long wicking straight and sharp branch, then ran over to snap it off, putting it into his side, tucking it in. He charged at her, leaping as high as he could go, then plummeted down towards her at lightning speed.

She squeaked like a chipmunk, dodging out of his way just in time and stumbling, losing his footing for a moment, then turned around towards her as she sprinted away, with him right behind her.

“FIGHT!” Adder yelled loudly. “Stop runnin’ ‘round like a littl’ salamander and fight like a dragon!”

She whirled around and swung her arm at him, with Vine skidding to a stop. He pulled out his lance so fast that Amethyst could process it and plunged it at her wing, drawing blood as she grimaced and howled with pain, trying to smack him with her tail. She heard a beating sound, which probably meant her attempt was successful.

She turned around and saw him plummeting towards her, thudding into her and pinning her back towards the ground while he put his makeshift spear against the back of her neck.

“Alright, enough,” Adder said furiously, turning to her as Vine hopped off her as she got up slowly. Ow. Everything ached. The dusty Cobra dragon threw a warm towel at her bleeding wing, yelping at the sudden object getting thrown at her. “You, NEVER let your guard down, worm! And do  _ NOT  _ run away from a battle so quickly! What are dragon parents teaching you youngins’ these days?!”

“Y-y-ye-yes sir,” she stammered, sitting down again.

“Alright, Wisteria Mountain and Mudslide, yer’ up next,” Adder said huffily, watching them stand up. Almost all of the beautiful vermillion colors had faded from the sky, as it was a denim blue now, mostly.

Her friend stood confidently in the clearing, her normal, regal friend had every scale ready to attack.

“Start!” He said as she threw off her adornments.

It was a darting, swift motion, and her friend was already behind him, her tail getting Mudslide off his feet as she pinned him to the ground. Just then, he kicked her off him, starting a wrestling match.

She swung her lower body and her legs to claw his thighs, still clinging onto his shoulders grimmly, almost drawing a bit of blood. He roared, then swatted his left wing down on her with full force, knocking her off. She rolled away and got back on her feet, turning extremely sharply and went for his neck, biting down into it. He roared again, clawing her neck as she bit down harder, let go, and used the same trick as she did at the beginning of the fight. He was knocked off his feet again, stumbling towards the ground again. Getting back up quickly, he shot off the ground.

He was in midair, about ready to pin her friend, she grabbed his shoulders and heaved her weight to knock him down. The warm gingery orange dragon shot a blast of fire as it licked her shoulders as she shut her eyes tight with pain. She then shot a charged bolt of lightning at his shoulders as he screamed in agony, as if his bones were being melted by lava. She threw his head and body right, pinning his face towards the ground as he shot a failed breath of flame that nearly set the greenery on fire.

“Alright, enough,” Adder said, nodding at Wisteria proudly as she hopped off of Mudslide, wincing at the shoulder she used her lightning breath on.

“And finally, Flamebaker and Lemongrass,” Adder said, beckoning to them.

“FlameWAKER,” he hissed as the old dragon barked a laugh. “But that sounds cool,” he added. “Like I bake the fl- you know what? That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Amethyst started giggling uncontrollably as Lemongrass snorted in amusement as they got up to the clearing. The green dragon slightly crouched down, unsheathing her claws.

“Fight!” Adder shouted. Flamewaker immediately charged at Lemongrass, who stood a defensive ground. She flew up her scales, revealing extremely sharp, sandpaper like pin pricks that were hidden beneath, with such precise timing right when he grabbed her shoulder. He roared with pain, then his neck started fuming with smoke. The grey whisps swirled around and up, his neck scales parting to reveal a lava like substance that smoked even more as the air became slightly polluted, making everything less clear for the purple dragon. 

Amethyst coughed as Flamewaker shot a huge mass of fiery magma at Lemongrass a moment later, as she darted out of the way just in time. The crimson-purple dragon took to the air as she clawed his chest deeply. He swiped at her snout, forcing her neck sharply right. She flew up her wings and flapped up to his level, clawing at his back with her prickly scales. He whipped around and shot another large burst of magma, hitting her neck as she shrieked with pain, kicking her back legs at his jaws and biting his tail, successfully making him lose a bit of blood.

“Ack!” Flamewaker yelped, whipping around and shooting yet another plume of magma. The green dragon let go, flung out her wings and smacked them down at her opponent with full force, flinging out her scales again to rough up his scales. Flamewaker unsheathed his claws and sliced a clean cut across the back of her neck, screaming and whipping around to her enemy, cutting through layers of scales across his shoulder.

“Enough!” Adder yelled as they both landed at the ground while Lemongrass applied a dry towel to her wounds, hissing softly as she flicked her tongue in and out like a furious viper. She then dunked it into the vat of water and applied it to her burn, then to her face.

“Alright, you all did excellent,” Adder said, narrowing his eyes at Amethyst. What was  _ that _ look for? Not  _ all  _ dragons are meant for fighting one another, and it was quite ridiculous that this elderly dragon thought so. Why did he  _ think _ there were healers? Retired battle frontiers at young ages?

“But there are a few things you all could have done better,” he went on. “You all didn’t go for a prime spot, although a couple of you did. Swiping at the feet, going for the throat, and being quick and agile with your claws and teeth and fire and scales.  _ That  _ will truly improve your skills. And use the terrain to your advantage, like Vine here did.”

He then went on rambling about weak points and using your natural abilities to your advantage along with terrain, so on and so forth, when thankfully she heard the ringing of the bell. 


	6. Morning Classes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: graphic depiction of a dragonet's (child's) corpse  
> Sorry Minow

“I don’t like that class too much,” Amethyst remarked as they entered the school again, walking up the stairs. “Whats next?” Amethyst felt like her wing was slowly turning into stone.

“Art class I hope,” Lemongrass said.

“That would be amazing. We could paint Mudslide bright pink.” Amethyst giggled.

“Though he might become MORE annoying- covered in the brightest color it would be more difficult to ignore him,” Wisteria Mountain pointed out.

“Ooh… good point. I wonder what his least favorite color is. We could cover him in THAT color,” Amethyst exclaimed.

“How would we do this without getting in trouble?” Lemongrass asked.

“Seeing the principle on the second day sounds like something Mudslide would do,” Wisteria Mountain pointed out.

“I want to cover someone in paint,” Amethyst announced.

“That would be awesome,” Lemongrass agreed.

“That won’t be the best idea,” the Tempest dragon observed. “Especially if there is a teacher watching us. I’m all in for getting this dragon punished, but maybe in a different way? He could tell on us if we got caught.”

“Good point,” Lemongrass sighed, leaping up to the end of the stairs and turning left. “I think it’s this way, if I memorized the map right.”  _ Memorized the map? On the second day? Crazy cool, but excuse me, HOW?!  _

Lemongrass led them to a ground floor classroom that was on the far left of the school, and she creaked open the door that said “Art Cave''.  _ Somniunda is the goddess of drawing, so maybe some reference to that will be in there!  _ Amethyst was excited to see.  _ If this is the art cave, perhaps there will also be a reference to Aequum being the god of music, or Concussio being the god of baking.  _ Amethyst doubted it, but music is art so perhaps.  _ They would also have to reference Hedera being the goddess of painting.  _ Anyhow, it was a beautiful room, light and airy and filled with windows that strongly smelled of lavender and papyrus paper. There were shelves lining the perimeter of the room, to Amethyst’s guess were filled with art supplies. At the far end of the room a River dragon- looking figure was placed, holding a pencil that was dripping with water features, landing in a small pool that was lined with liles. A Jungle dragon looking figure was next to the riverflight statue. The Jungleflight was holding a paintbrush that spewed water into the pool beneath them that had miniature dark wooden dragon figurines, all in different poses. One standing in a defensive crouch, one standing heroically with a flowering crown. The sound of the trickling water relaxed Amethyst, and surely the others, too, as it dripped down.

“Whoa,” Lemongrass breathed, going over to one of the canvases. There was a little table to the side of it, lined with a disposable white plaid patterned towel that smelled like peony soap, presumably to wipe off paintbrushes. “Look at this painting!” Amethyst rushed over to see. The painting was a beautiful scene of dancing fish and glittery purple gemstones in an underwater cave overlooked by a large green-gray mountain that radiated calm and power. Amethyst was awestruck, and a little sad, as it reminded her of her home.  _ No  _ Amethyst thought to herself, they were going to kill Sandy. I had to leave. Still, whoever made this must be a great painter, maybe they could be friends!

Mudslide, Cactus, and Flamewaker came over to see what they were looking at.

“Pretty.” Cactus remarked.

“Incorrect. Fish don’t dance.” Mudslide said with a yawn.

“It’s ART, not a WINDOW or something.” Amethyst growled. Then she paused.  _ Did I just growl? WOW! I’m getting better at it! _

Her thoughts were interrupted by Driftwood walking into the room, trotting in his usual smug pride. “What, may I ask, are you all doing at  _ MY  _ painting?” he said with false politeness and a sneer. 

“YOUR painting?” Amethyst was taken aback a little. How could such a mean and snobby dragon paint such a beautiful painting? Driftwood actually looked a little offended. 

“Yes, it is, so you may move away and I will leave you.” Not waiting for an answer, he shoved past them all, took his painting, and left. 

“Well  _ THAT  _ was rude,” Amethyst said in surprise. He had always been good at drawing, but his paintings were never that great. They were two different things, after all.

“You say that with surprise? Isn’t he usually rude?” Lemongrass asked, flicking Amethyst’s tail with her own.

Amethyst grinned. “Yes he is,” She said, playfully flaring out her wings and ‘accidentally’ whacking Mudslide in the snout.

Mudslide glared at her, and Wisteria Mountain tried to disguise her laughter by putting her talons over her face in a dapper way. Vine ran over from his piece of paper he put on a canvas. 

“Guys, why are you over  _ here  _ when there are paintings to look at everywhere  _ except _ here?” He asked.

“I’m planning to make one if I can find the right colors of paints,” Wisteria Mountain sighed.

Amethyst shrugged, and followed Vine to the next painting over. It was a brown and green snake coiled around a large amethyst. The background was black fading down to a white oval around the snake.  _ This one is amazing, too _ . Amethyst thought in awe. The amethyst was captured in a perfect way, except for a few painty blobby spots her and there. The scales felt so real, Amethyst didn’t realize she had to stroke the scales.

“Has anyone else noticed that the last painting we looked at also involved amethysts?” Wisteria Mountain asked as she and Lemongrass walked over.

“That looks like something my brother would paint,” Lemongrass remarked.

Amethyst’s face felt oddly hot. 

Vine walked over to a spider plant with a look of awe on his face.

“Hey gorgeous,” He said. “Are you free tonight?” 

Amethyst started laughing uncontrollably. “You’re a little weird, Vine.” she said affectionately, wiping tears from her eyes.

Wisteria Mountain looked disgusted. “Vine, don’t do  _ that  _ ever again,” she ordered.

Amethyst laughed harder, tears of joy streaming down her face, crashing into her friend.

Flamewaker walked over, and saw Amethyst. “You're crying,” He said. “Has anyone noticed that Amethyst is crying?” 

“Jeez Amethyst, what's so funny?” Hurricane said, skipping over.

Amethyst didn’t have time to respond, because a teal Ocean flight with splatters of gold paint on her claws walked in. She was tall and skinny, and had aristocratic looking bones. She narrowed her aquamarine green eyes across the room, and pinpointed the huddled group like a hawk.

“Sorry- Principal Urchinwing needed me for a moment.” She said, beckoning for the group to come over to her. “I am Professor Coral, and I am your art teacher. Please tell me your name, and then you may begin painting. Today is a free-paint day, so I can get to know you better.”

Everyone introduced themselves, and got a canvas to paint on. Amethyst noticed Vine sitting as close to the spider plant as he could.  _ What a silly dragon. _ She thought, before sitting in the spot next to him. 

Amethyst began talking to Vine about his old panther friend, and pretty soon, her painting was complete.

It was a bunch of ducks at a river. One duck was wearing a woven crown of flowers and glaring at a duck sitting in mud. Another duck was sitting nearby, in the grass, drawing. Another duck was sitting in the shallows of the river, reading a book. There was a duck sitting at a small stone table, surrounded by sand, that was set with a loaf of bread, a spoon, and a fork. A few ‘feet’ away from the duck with the bread, there was a duck holding a butter knife next to a plant that had been chopped up. Finally, there was a crying duck being comforted by a soaking wet duck, both looking at the murdered plant. They looked like fluff balls with orange legs and squares for mouths, and Amethyst snorted at it.

Lemongrass walked over. “Hi! I’m taking a stretch break. Nice painting, Amethyst! Is that our clan?”

Amethyst nodded, pleased that someone had recognized the clan as ducks.

“Wisteria Mountain and Mudslide?” Lemongrass asked, gesturing to the duck with the flower crown and the one sitting in the mud.

“Yeah…” Amethyst replied.  _ I hope she likes it. _

“Cactus and his bread!” Lemongrass exclaimed, pointing to the duck at the stone table. Cactus, Flamewaker, and Vine looked over.

“Me!” Flamewaker said happily, pointing at the duck with the knife.

“I’m the one crying, right?” Vine asked.

Amethyst nodded.

“Am I the one in the grass?” Lemongrass asked.

“Yup! I put most ducks near some part of their dragon reference’s habitat.” Amethyst announced, glad for the attention.

“This must be you!” Lemongrass said, pointing to the duck with the book.

“And that leaves Hurricane!” Cactus said, making Amethyst’s bread painting look more like bread and less like a blob.

“Yup!” Amethyst agreed, swishing her tail.

“Students! A lot of you are finishing up, but we are only halfway through class! We do have time for you to do another painting!” Professor Coral called out.

Amethyst grinned.  _ I’m going to stick with doing our clan as animals, but this time, I’m going to try otters.  _ She looked over at her Tempest dragon friend’s workspace. She had barely started, but it looked like a beautiful summer mountain by a lakeside, from what she could tell from this angle.

As Amethyst was about to do the final brushstroke on Hurricane the otter, she heard shouting and running coming from outside the classroom. Professor Coral’s head shot up. 

“I will check it out. Probably some of Professor Adder’s students going overboard on a battle.” Professor Coral announced, running over to the door and going out.

“Ah yes the first murder!” Flamewaker exclaimed cheerfully, breaking into a laughing and coughing fit.

Amethyst flinched, and whirled around to face him.

“Excuse me?” She asked.

“I only agreed to come because someone’s gotta kill someone eventually.” Flamewaker said with a dark edge creeping into his voice. 

Amethyst wished Bracken were here.

“HA! You DO love my brother!” Lemongrass announced loudly, jumping out of her seat. After a moment of panic that Lemongrass had mind reading abilities, Amethyst realized she must have said something out loud.  _ Oh dear,  _ she said to herself.

“No- I just want to know if he's safe!” Amethyst yelped.

“ _ Suuuuuuuuuuure _ .” Lemongrass said with a knowing smirk and _ DEFINITE _ smugness in her voice, but she didn’t mention Bracken again. Only then did she process what was happening outside the classroom. There were screams and several dragons calling for their mothers. Flamewaker however, was as giddy and happy as a Riverflight when they saw a baby turtle. Amethyst wondered where he found the heart to have such dark desires.

Vine had his wings wrapped around the spider plant, crying. 

“The teachers will handle it.” Wisteria Mountain said.

“Let's get back to painting, I’m sure it's just a prank.” Lemongrass agreed.

Amethyst began painting again, losing herself in the endless brushstrokes, which was definitely easier than facing the fear of a murderer at the school.

Amethyst finally finished her painting, and sat back to admire it. The Flamewaker otter was floating on its back, holding a hatchet with dark red splotches on it. The Cactus otter was floating on its back next to Flamewaker and holding a loaf of bread. The Hurricane otter was swimming with the Mudslide otter. The Vine otter was laying on a rock with a spider plant. The Wisteria Mountain, Lemongrass, and Amethyst otters were chasing each other around in the water. 

Amethyst looked over, and giggled. Cactus had painted a silhouette of a dragon from every tribe bowing to a loaf of bread surrounded by a golden background.

“Guys, class is over, and the teacher still hasn’t returned, should we just go?” Lemongrass asked worriedly. 

“Yes, let's go!” Flamewaker said happily. Amethyst was concerned he only wanted to go in case they found a body, but she was worried about Bracken and wanted to check on him.

The clan gathered their stuff and walked out of the classroom. Amethyst gasped. The hallway was covered in streaks of blood and bloody talon prints. Wisteria Mountain brushed Amethyst’s wing with her own.

Flamewaker chuckled loudly and said “ See? I told you so.” 

“Why are you so happy?” Amethyst demanded of him. 

“I was a øksbruker in the Desert and Volcano Flight war,” Flamewaker said with way too much pride in a sentence about war.

“Do you think we should tell the principal?” Vine asked nervously, talons twitching slightly.

“Tell the principle…. That Flamewaker was in a war?” Mudslide asked slowly.

Cactus facepalmed, and Amethyst chuckled a little. 

“You are the most  _ stupid  _ dragon ever to exsist,” Wisteria Mountain informed Mudslide, who looked baffled. She continued to walk, holding her shoulders out in a sassy way as she walked, flicking her tail from side to side on the vinyl plank floors.

“Anyway, where do we go next?” Hurricane asked as they turned around a corner and spilled into the entrance of the school.

“I believe history class next,” Lemongrass told him. 

She led them through the halls of the school, seemingly very confident in where she was going. Amethyst was still amazed that she had memorized the whole map.

“Lemongrass, how did you memorize the map?” Cactus asked, clearly having the same thoughts and emotions as Amethyst, said dragon jumping a little with surprise.

“I read a lot, so I guess it’s easier to memorize stuff on paper than stuff being said to me,” she explained, usings small slight hand gestures.

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.”

“Say, Lemongrass, you’re quite the good actor, huh?” Flamewalker spoke, leaning his head forward to look at her from the side.

“I am?”

“Yes, you don’t seem all that shaken up about the scene back there,”

“You don’t either, Mr. Murder,” she retorted, though Amethyst noticed that her shoulders were tense, and her wings were pulled close to her body. 

Amethyst caught the Tempest Flight quietly snickering as she stole a glance at her.

“Fair enough.”

They kept walking from there in silence, and soon came upon a large door labeled ‘History’ with books carved near the door knob. Lemongrass stopped in front of it, letting the others have enough room to move in front of her if they wanted. Amethyst stopped next to Wisteria Mountain, their wings barely touching, but she didn’t seem to notice. Mudslide shoved his way past them, forcing Amethyst to catch her friend as she fell. She was about to growl an insult at him when Lemongrass beat her to it. She brushed her shoulders off, took a deep breath that only she noticed, and opened her mouth to speak again.

“Mudslide, you might wanna watch yourself around royalty. She clearly isn’t gonna let you get away with being rude to us the whole year, so how about you fix it before she has to, yeah?” Lemongrass said, whipping towards the brown dragon with a soft scowl. 

Mudslide simply scoffed and opened the door, entering before the other dragons could say anything.  _ Is it just me, or has Lemongrass become more awesome since the last time I saw her?  _ Amethyst wondered happily.

“Mudslide,” Wisteria Mountain said in a strained politeness she used around him, following him into the room, nearly snicking the door shut. “Could you please stop?” emphasizing the ‘please’ with a passive aggressive tone, like an agitated wolf. Amethyst bolted into the room after them.

“Sure,” Mudslide’s voice mocked.

It was large, open, and had two large windows with multiple black sections, around sixteen is what Amethyst calculated at first glance. There were thirty polished ebony desks, accompanied by a soft, dull muted white plaid table cloth that covered two thirds of the table that was messily arrayed vertically, with a bright green string of pearls potted plant and a steel pencil holder.

There was an enormous map of their continent that took up the whole far side of the room, with a short dark steel floating staircase so the teacher could reach the far ends of the parchment. Bookshelves almost took up the entire wall space, along with a roman numeral cloak placed by the left side of the room and a few decorative shelves, along with a vague sound of trickling water like the one in the art room.

“Woah,” Cactus said.

“Look at the map, though,” Wisteria Mountain said, starting towards it. “It’s so detailed.”

“So now what?” Flamewaker said. “Sit at a desk until our history teacher arrives?”

“I would assume so,” The dark grey Tempest dragon replied, sitting at one of the front desks around the left end of the row. Amethyst sat to her right, and Lemongrass her left. Hurricane took the seat on the far left, next to Lemongrass, and Cactus sat behind him with Flamewaker to his right, and Vine sat next to Amethyst. Mudslide chose a seat further to the right, still in the front row. There was an empty seat between him and Vine, a seat that the green dragon was thankful for, for some reason. 

Amethyst pricked up her ears. Was she hearing voices?

She was right. About twenty four dragons burst into the room, a cobra dragon and a sea dragon, booing and hissing at each other violently. A huge scarlet dragon was shouting at them to stop, and Bracken appeared in front of the two shoving his right hand towards the phthalo blue dragon. He retreated into his shoulders, scowling at him, and padded off heavily. A lemon yellow with blood orange hints around her spine grassland dragon eyed the arguing dragons, then looked at a golden-orange dragon that shared her flight, whispering to one another in a gossip like way.

She caught Wisteria Mountain rolling her eyes. She sat perfectly still, twitching her ears back, bothered by the sound and closing her eyelids for a moment.

The blue ocean dragon shouted something at the cobra dragon, baring his teeth. Then the shouting started to elevate. Amethyst couldn’t listen too clearly, but it was something about battle training class.

“ENOUGH!” A dragon shouted.

They all whipped around, suddenly in a deadly silence. A large chocolate brown volcano dragon entered the room, complete with a long, elegant snout and blacksteel glasses. He was holding several books to his chest and shoved his way out of the crowd. A wimpy brown jungle dragon followed him, staying a bit close to the ground. He was dappled with wide-ivy green leaf shapes and grey the same, dull ivy green leaves off of his spinning branches, holding some books as well.

The dragon with glasses laid down the books by the map, then stepped onto the stage.

“Hello,” he said in a deep, gruff voice, deeper than Adder’s. “I’m Professor Goshawk, and I’ll be your history teacher for the year. Please, sit down if you haven't already. Cacao, please hand out these books,” he said, pointing two talons at the messy pile, flicking his orange veined wings and staring at the dragon named cacao with fiery orange eyes. “We will start on chapter one, flip to page six when you get yours.” 

It was a large, thick book- about six hundred pages, Amethyst guessed, largely inscribed with bold, gold leaf letters “The Detailed History of Enocoasis.”

It took a look of blabbering of the great amazing start of this amazing and awesome continent- and- did I say awesome? Yeah. That was pretty inaccurate. They were supposed to do a summary on the huge paged chapter they read in class. They were handed pieces of rough, recycled paper with lines on it to what seemed to be where they wrote it.

“You are dismissed!” Goshawk said after what felt like an eternity. She immediately stood up with the book in her hand as her clan grouped up around where Mudslide was sitting.

“Where to next, Lemongrass?” Mudslide mocked. Her friend nearly knocked her out with her wing as the tempest dragon gave him a ferocious glare.

“Believe the library,” she said.

“For what?” Amethyst asked dreamily.

“I believe to study there, or work on our homework,” Wisteria Mountain guessed as the grassland dragon nodded. She beckoned them, and they all followed her like a pack of salmon.

They were just at the doorway when they saw something pale on the ground. She wasn’t sure what it was at first, but it smelled like a skunk that was muddled in water.

She looked down.

The pale, three legged dragonet, was lying there on the floor, her beautiful pale purple scales stained pink and splotched with crimson.

Minnow, a dragonet that Amethyst had known since she was born, was dead on the floor, left in a pool of her own blood.


End file.
